Eunji rarely went to the officers’ barracks on the far side of the Emperor’s ziggurat since her promotion, but she was busying herself to avoid a certain Court Wizard who kept trying to demand an audience with her. She wasn’t ready to face him to debrief about their recent mission just yet, though even the Emperor must have heard that they had lost the Witch by now.

Her gloved fingers twitched, like a light shock, as she thought of the last time she fired her pistol. She was one of the most renowned marksmen in the Empire, and she hoped she hadn’t missed.

She made her way down the length of the barracks, through to the other side, striding purposefully past officers who all stood at her presence and saluted. She shouldered into the far doors and continued out to the training grounds, that wide patch of packed earth that brought back more memories for her than the yard of her childhood home. How many of these new recruits would also begin to forget what life was like before enlisting, she wondered as she gazed around vaguely, seeing all of the fresh faces sweating under the constant barrage of shouts from drill sergeants.

One such face watched her passage, her eyes following Eunji from beneath the brim of her cadet hat.

Somi had already switched her uniform several times over the past few days to maneuver herself into the anonymous grouping of the lowest rank in the Imperial Army. After overhearing how few Sky Armor pilots were left in the army after the recent fight, she knew she wouldn’t have lasted long in that disguise before being discovered. But after the long hours of basic training she was currently suffering through as a ‘recruit’, she thought perhaps it was time for a promotion.

Somi waited until the other cadets began to pair off and practice some hand-to-hand combat, and took her chance to follow after the general. Between the exhausting drills, she had been racking her brain for an escape plan to return to the Northern Continent, but something kept her here day after day, skulking around the barracks in the dead of night. She didn’t want to leave without doing some damage, and who better to strike from within than her? Hadn’t that been the original plan?

She recalled watching the Blackjack leave after the dust had settled from her crash landing - the heartbreaking realization that they weren’t coming back for her, the fact that they probably thought she was dead. But in the aftermath of that battle, it had been clear the mission had failed. There was no talk amongst the soldiers of any major shakeup in the power structure, and though Somi wasn’t sure what had happened, she knew their targets were still alive.

And now one of them was within sight. She tailed the general across the training grounds to the long garages that hemmed in the area. She hid easily between the rows of siege weaponry and all iterations of Magitek Armor as she followed the general. She maneuvered closer and closer, waiting for an opportune moment to strike, but was surprised when another soldier came running up to the general, seemingly out of breath, and saluted.

“General, your presence is requested in the Great Hall,” he wheezed.

“By whom?”

The soldier paused for a moment. “Why, the Emperor himself, ma’am.”

Somi thought she could detect a faint smile, though it didn’t reach the general’s dark eyes. “‘suppose I can’t ignore that, now can I?”

The soldier didn’t respond, and after a moment, the general dismissed him with a wave. When she was alone again, Somi thought she could see the general gather herself, straightening her square shoulders and raising her head high before changing directions and striding off, back towards the large iron ziggurat.

It was much more difficult for Somi to follow after the general once she disappeared inside the main structure of the military complex, but her unique abilities soon found her passage to the Great Hall where she entered upon a conversation already in progress.

“Another child,” the Emperor murmured in his gravelly voice. He was seated high in the most uncomfortable looking throne Somi had ever beheld: a blocky, iron monstrosity situated at the summit of an equally cold, and uninviting staired diaz.

“An extreme solution, but after learning from the mistakes of the first one, we should be able to produce even better results this time.” An unnerving chuckle drew Somi’s attention to a figure at the base of the steps, bedecked in multicolored silks and the wide, blade of a glimmering scimitar at his side.

“The only mistake was letting you anywhere near her. Treating her like a disposable piece of artillery was what got us into this mess in the first place,” the general countered heatedly.

“Please, you generals clipped my wings long ago, if you recall,” he lilted with a piercing gaze back at Eunji. “I hardly see how the fault is mine,” he ended with a dark growl.

But the Emperor seemed deep in thought as he gazed out over the tops of their heads and into the dark void of his low-lit hall. “Another child,” he iterated quietly.

“Why does she not come out?” the Emperor grumbled, staring at the little girl who hid behind the wetnurse’s skirts.

The nurse pursed her lips as she glanced down at Wendy. “Your Highness… perhaps if you... “ she hesitated.

“If I what? Out with it.”

“Perhaps if you smiled,” the nurse blurted, her gaze roving over the Emperor’s severe features, accentuated by his voluminous moustache and eyebrows.

“Nonsense! A smile… She is an esper, is she not? She should be used to things far scarier than me.”

The nurse sighed. “She’s half-esper, sire.” She knelt onto the rug and took the child’s small hand, rubbing her back to soothe her in the presence of someone as beastly as Emperor Gestahl.

He stared down at Wendy, the first time he had visited the child himself since they brought her back to Vector, and was surprised to see evidence of the nurse’s words in the little girl’s face. Those angular, impish features Wendy had sported as an infant were all smoothed over and if not for the pinkish fur that covered her entire body, Gestahl might have mistaken her for a normal little girl. And the most marked change was her eyes. Though they had nearly completely faded to white from their original bright red, he wondered if they would always remind him of her father.

He too knelt on the carpet to get a better look at her humanized features, and instead of recoiling, Wendy took a cautious step forward. “Is this the effect of being away from the Esper World?” he mused aloud.

The nurse had noticed Wendy’s gradual change from the tiny, fluffy baby she had been delivered, to this much more human-looking toddler and nodded. Every day she looked more like a little girl and less like one of them. “And perhaps an unconscious desire to assimilate,” she ventured, only catching herself after the words left .

The Emperor glared at her from beneath his bushy brows. “She will never truly be able to assimilate,” his gravelly voice ground out. “And we don’t want her to. We’ll keep her away from others as much as possible-” he paused as he felt a tug on his moustache and looked down to see Wendy with her small hand pulling on his whiskers. He could see the sharp points of her fangs, quite prominent in the smile she flashed up at him.

And it nearly broke the nurse’s heart to see the hint of a smile break across the Emperor’s wizened face, only to be quickly dismissed as he harrumphed and stood back up to his full height. “You, the Engineer, and a small handful of others will be tasked with her care. No one else will know she even exists until we are ready.”

“No,” he finally denied, his voice like a boulder scraping against gravel. “The way was sealed; the children of the Magi made sure of that.”

“But my liege,” Leeteuk simpered.

“Think of what’s happened since then!” the Emperor barked, his voice rising before falling again to a mere whisper. “It’s been almost 25 years, Leeteuk. Twenty-five long years of experiments. Of Magitek advancements. Of our weaponry deployed across the face of the World of Balance. If the espers were to ever see… No. We’ve come too far now. The Goddesses themselves would weep to see what we’ve done.”

Somi barely breathed as she listened. What was he talking about? The Gate? Espers? Magitek… What have they done?

“Then it’s too late,” Leeteuk, bedecked in his silks and frills, countered as he slowly ascended the iron diaz. “The campaign in the North needs more power,” he sneered with a raised fist. “Our armies are gaining ground at a snail’s pace, and the Kingdom of Figaro is proving to be too much for them.” He turned his curled lip back towards Eunji, who glowered up at him from the bottom step. “We need to commit to this war, to your vision,” he continued, regarding the Emperor once more. “If we are to bring the world to heel, we need more espers to do it! Let me go back to Thamasa. Let me go to the Gate and seek out more allies!”

In the following silence, Eunji’s scoff echoed around the empty hall, and the Emperor raised one of his bushy eyebrows. “General?”

Somi too looked at the new general with curiosity. Irene had only been traveling with them for a short while, but she couldn’t have a more different impression of the two women. Where Irene seemed cold and calculating, Eunji gesticulated fiercely at the Court Wizard and loudly denounced him.

“He doesn’t want more allies, he wants more slaves! He won’t go there to negotiate. He’ll trap the espers and bring them back here in chains. That’s what he wanted to do with Phoenix, and that’s what he’ll keep doing unless you put a stop to it.”

The chamber was silent after her outburst, and Somi peeked out from behind the pillar to catch a glimpse of the Court Wizard’s face. He was watching her from several steps up, his arms crossed in front of his chest and a small, cold smile on his lips.

The Emperor’s expression was far more serious, his bushy brows drawn together in thought. As the silence drew out, Eunji composed herself and continued her verbal assault.

“His recklessness in Narshe and his desire for total victory got the Witch captured. Possibly killed,” she added in a voice barely above a whisper. “Instead of waiting for a proper force to retrieve the frozen esper, he almost brought the whole mountain down on us-”

“Me?!” Leeteuk finally interrupted. “I brought the mountain down on us? I got the Witch captured? If I didn’t know any better, general,” he spat, “I’d say you gave her to them.”

“It’s a good thing you do know better, then,” Eunji returned in a growl as she began to ascend the steps towards him. “Because that would be treason.” And in a voice almost too low for Somi to hear save for how empty the iron hall was, she thought she caught Eunji’s low whisper: “I’d never let her out of my sight.”

“Or the sight of those you trust, hmm?” he murmured with a piercing look.

Eunji was lucky that her concern for Wendy was lending an appropriate amount of anger to her expression as she glared back at him unflinchingly.

“Leeteuk.”

With one final, leering smirk, he spun on his heel to face the Emperor once again.

“Your Highne-?”

“You were in charge of the retrieval of Phoenix from Narshe. Wendy, and whatever else occurred in the mountains is your responsibility.”

Leeteuk’s smug expression transformed as his smirk split into a grin. Only his widening eyes and flaring nostrils betrayed his boiling rage as the Emperor went on.

“Narshe is a key asset in the North. The village sits on the richest veins of ore the likes of which could easily turn this war in either side’s direction, should they be fortunate enough to strike a bargain.” The Emperor rose slowly from his seat, forcing Leeteuk to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. “And you. You may have cost us our chance to sway them to our cause.”

The Court Wizard his lips. “S-sway? Why, at Tzen-”

“Tzen is in our backyard!” the Emperor barked, his long hair falling over his hunched shoulders. “Narshe is as far away from the Empire as a city can be! We do not have the resources to bend them to my will unless we halt all of our other campaigns and focus entirely on them.” His wizened form flexed with rage and he pointed a gnarled finger at Leeteuk. “You had control of the situation. Control of her. Did you not tell me the Slave Crown would eliminate any margin for error in our plans?”

“But-”

“DIDN’T YOU?” the Emperor roared. “Your continued recklessness has my commanders exhausting our resources cleaning up after you. We may soon reach a stalemate in the North due to your serious misjudgement. Ever since you turned Doma into a kingdom of martyrs, more cities rally against us.” He paused for breath, his temper reducing to a simmer, though the fire in his eyes burned hot beneath his thick brows. “You are right, we do need more power,” he growled in a low voice. “And more allies. But how can I trust you to not make more enemies?”

Somi had long since retreated behind the pillar, too frightened by the exchange to do anything more than listen, but as she focused on quieting her breathing, she heard the Emperor’s decision issue in a composed, measured voice.

“You’ll get your wish, Leeteuk. The Empire will seek out the espers, but you will remain here and help me clean up this mess with Narshe. General Jung,” he called, and Eunji ascended until she stood abreast of the Court Wizard. “You will go to the Gate and strike an accord with the espers. Do not mention Heechul’s laboratory, and…” his voice dropped unexpectedly and Somi risked another glance at the scene with curiosity.

“And if you speak with Maduin, do not mention Wendy.”

+++

It wasn’t difficult to dispatch the lone soldier placed near the edge of town, practically on the beach itself as if expecting an attack from the sea. Yooa and Yeri had identified this as the weakest point of entry, though it put them on nearly the complete opposite side of town from where they hoped to stage their main attack. Seulgi followed closely behind Irene, part of the ‘strike’ team with Wendy and Solji. She was on the balls of her feet, her sword drawn and ready to take down the first soldier she saw, though her gaze was already sweeping the streets for her parents.

“Calm down,” Solji whispered to her from behind. “Stick together no matter what. Trust the other teams.”

Irene raised a finger to her lips as she turned around, then waved to the flankers, sending them off to double back around the outskirts of the town. They would wait near a bridge Seulgi and Yeri had described to them near a river that hugged the southeastern edge of the village - the spot where Irene was hoping to draw as many soldiers as possible. The trick would be meeting them there through the small tangle of shops and houses, and not get any of the citizens of Mobliz caught in the crossfire.

Irene held Moonbyul’s gaze for a long moment, hoping the captain, and leader of the civilian team, understood her silent instructions. Wait until the enemy was engaged, then evacuate everyone. And with a final look at her own team, she pushed forward.

Away from the light breeze of the beach, Seulgi became aware of a faint snow of ash beginning to blanket the road. Her gaze was momentarily distracted by Wendy’s heeled boots slipping on the coated cobblestone, and she realized the general haze might inhibit their plans a bit. Would they be able to draw enough attention to themselves? Would the smoke create too much chaos? And it did smell sweet, like Yooa and Yeri had described.

“Ghyssal greens,” she breathed as the scented smoke filled her lungs. Solji placed a hand on her shoulder but said nothing as they continued on, following the petite figure of Irene and her gleaming blade.

They heard the flames before they saw the fire, and as they arrived at the square, Seulgi saw that the massive bonfire was even worse than she had imagined. It was a pile nearly as tall as a house, and she could see the raging flames at various pieces of furniture - entire chests of drawers had been thrown in, the wood groaning and popping as the lacquer finishes melted away. Splintered pieces of chairs and tables jutted out on all sides, but Seulgi could only guess that the grasses used to feed her chocobos had long since burned away as kindling.

And if the cries from around the square were anything to go by, it wasn’t just the chocobos that would go hungry in the coming winter.

“Have mercy!”

“How will we eat?”

“You monsters! You’re all monsters!”

The strike team was assaulted by the wailing of the townsfolk as they ringed the fire, pushed back by the soldiers as entire households worth of furniture and goods went up in flames.

One man in particular suddenly burst from the crowd and grabbed at the rifle a soldier was holding. They struggled through the smoke until more soldiers ran to help, knocking the man to the ground with the butts of their guns. They kicked at him, their boots striking his chest and back repeatedly, and as he twisted to get away from their blows, Seulgi felt her blood run cold.

“Seulong.”

“Seul…?”

“...ong?”

“SEULONG!!!” Seulgi screamed, ignoring her team’s questions. She dove into the crowd, pushing roughly through the throng until she burst onto the scene, her sword held high. “Get off him- back! GET BACK!” she roared as she brought her blade down again and again.

“Seulgi!” Irene cursed as she raced in to help.

Wendy gave Solji and wide-eyed look before drawing her own thin sabre and following.

“... ,” was all Solji could say. It seemed like their plan would need a little adjusting.

It was the same unbridled fervor Irene had seen back in the water cave of Crescent Mountain, as Seulgi ripped her blade across the face of a soldier, splitting his crown open at the brow. As Irene struck out with her own sword to disarm a soldier before he could raise his rifle against them, she could see out of the corner of her eye civilians rushing in to help as well.

“Solji!” she shouted in the rising din, not even sure where the gang leader might be, “Get them back, get them out of here!” Their plan had been completely abandoned and their only hope was to try and lead the soldiers through the streets towards Joy and her team waiting across town at the bridge.

After brutally dispatching the soldiers in the tangle around the fallen man, Irene gripped Seulgi’s shoulder and spun her around. “Seulgi!” But Seulgi’s attention immediately turned back to the victim. Irene grabbed her again. “Seulgi, what are you doing? Do you know how dangerous that was?”

Seulgi’s eyes were full of tears of rage as she turned to face Irene once again. “It’s Seulong!” she cried out in a choking sob, dropping to her knees to cradle the bleeding man in her arms. “It’s my brother.”

“Your…?”

“Seulong!”

“Seulgi??”

There were more voices, as an older man and woman joined them and knelt to wrap their arms around Seulgi and her brother.

“Mom?” Seulgi gasped as she was embraced.

“Seraph be praised,” the older man cried as he buried his face into Seulgi’s shoulder.

Seulgi was speechless. Though her brother had been injured, he was there, alive in her arms. As she tearfully regarded her parents and looked back down to his bruised and bleeding form, she thought she could just detect a smile on his split lips.

“Hey, Seulbear. Welcome home.”

Irene could only mutely take in the pitiful family reunion, but the fighting wasn’t finished. Cries were erupting in the crowd as other townsfolk went down under the stocks and barrels of the soldiers’ guns, and when she heard the first shot, she knew they had lost control of the situation. “Pick him up, find the others… round everyone up,” she ordered, standing up to her full height to survey the square.

“Irene!”

Irene turned back to Seulgi just in time to catch her kiss full on the mouth, desperate, and marked with the tang of sweat. Irene was too shocked to adequately respond, especially when Seulgi pulled away with a “Thank you. I love you,” before scooping up the half-conscious form of her brother and dragging him back through the crowd with the help of her parents.

“I…”

“Irene!” Another cry pulled at her attention as Solji sent a soldier flying back into the bonfire in a shower of cinders and roiling flames. “We have to draw them away!” There was too much smoke, and the square was too crowded, and now that the imperials were opening fire, they only had one recourse.

“Cut them down! Push through to the bridge!” Irene tried to shout, though she could barely see from one end of the square to the other for all the smoke. Her eyes began to water as she strained to pick out the remaining members of her team.

A new cry began to rise up over the others as Irene slid her blade into the gut of the nearest soldier. “The Witch!”

“It’s the Witch!”

“No,” Irene breathed, kicking the gurgling man off her saber. She whirled to catch sight of Wendy, her own sword flashing amidst the mass of tussling bodies. She was fighting. Irene couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Wendy lift her blade outside of the Swordmaster’s practice room.

She watched the little witch send a rifle flying with a strike of her blade, the soldier falling to his knees as he clutched a fingerless hand and screamed. As Wendy turned, Irene could see the flecks of blood striated across her cheeks. She was about to rush over to her, but a hot white beam of energy cut across her path, leaving a swirl of smoke in its wake.

The blast rocked a storefront, sending splintered glass and wood zipping through the air, and Irene threw her forearm across her face as she felt herself get pelted by shrapnel. She lowered her arm and turned to see the indistinct forms of large hulking machines lurching through the choking haze. The cannon of one began to light up, a bright white circle gathering energy to focus into another beam.

Irene ducked behind the massive bonfire, but to her horror, the Armor shot right into the heart of the flames and scattered the burning mass around the square. Where there had been shouting and sounds of fighting all around, now there were screams. Irene herself had Moonbyul’s thick coat to thank for protection against the rain of sparks and wood, but others hadn’t been so lucky.

Nearby, Solji was bent over the body of an older woman, and Irene could see a smoking, broken table leg sticking out of her side.

“Solji, no!”

The gang leader carefully rolled off of the top of the woman she had protected as Irene dropped to her knees to catch her. Solji was already breathing heavily, each gasp causing contractions around the wound and sent pain lancing through her body. She gripped Irene’s hand as the ex-general went to reach for the wood.

“Nn- don’t,” she ground out, a trickle of blood escaping her lips. “Yeri… Yeri has-”

Of course. “Wendy!” Irene called, her head whipping up to look for the little witch.

Wendy was easy enough to find. Amidst the screams and the scramble of the villagers to put out the small fires started all around the square, Wendy stood stock still, surveying the chaos with a look of senseless shock. Irene shouted her name again, but to no avail. Wendy was lost somewhere, and Irene couldn’t reach her.

How could it have all gone so wrong so quickly?

With one last desperate cry, she prayed Wendy would snap out of it, and thankfully the little witch’s tear-filled eyes finally blinked and met Irene’s. “Irene?” But when she saw Solji’s state she rushed over.

“You have to get her to Yeri,” Irene said grimly, carefully delivering Solji into Wendy’s arms. “She has supplies for this, but you have to go now. They should be waiting at the bridge-” Irene stopped as she realized Wendy wasn’t listening. She was staring down at the wound, the table leg Solji’s weak hands had a grip on, trying to steady it as she laid in her arms. Wendy hesitatingly let the tips of her fingers press against the blood-soaked folds of Solji’s torn shirt. Solji groaned and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Wendy,” Irene said, trying to regain her attention. They didn’t have time for this. Irene knew it had been a mistake to let Wendy join the fight. Irene could hear more cannon blasts erupting around the square as the soldiers wreaked havoc on the scattering crowd, driving the villagers back. She stood and raised her saber above her head, and with a flash, drew one such beam to herself. The crackling energy rippled down her blade, causing it to glow, and Irene continued to hold it up with both hands to steady herself.

Irene glanced down at the figures at her feet just in time to see Wendy, with a hand wrapped around the wood, yank it out of Solji’s side. A gurgling cry ripped from Solji’s throat as her head fell back, trying not to pass out from the pain. Wendy pressed both of her hands against the wound as it bled fresh through her fingers, and Irene could swear she could feel the warmth radiating off of her small form.

Another blast was drawn to Irene’s blade and she nearly fell to one knee from the strain. This wasn’t like the cave in Narshe where she had faced Wendy’s whipping flames. She realized now that even under the effects of the Slave Crown, the ‘Witch’ had been holding back, but the Magitek Armors, and their pilots, knew no such mercy.

“Wendy-!”

“I closed it!” Wendy announced as she gathered Solji up in her arms.

“You what?”

“The wound,” Wendy said, struggling to get to her feet under the weight of the much taller woman. “I closed it, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”

Irene was still having difficulty processing her words. “You… closed it?”

“Which way to the bridge?” Wendy asked, feeling that now wasn’t the time to explain to Irene the full extent of her abilities.

Irene pointed with her blade. “There, Seulgi said it’s directly south. Just keep going that way.”

Wendy looked up at her with a frown. “What about you?”

Irene looked around the square, noting how the screaming and fighting was dying down, and the number of motionless bodies strewn about the cobblestone. Through the haze, Irene was sure she could count at least three Magitek Armors, and that was far too many for them to outrun in this state.

“I’ll hold them off.”

“No-”

“I’ll give you a head start and then I’ll follow.”

“Irene!” Wendy pleaded.

Irene gave her a faint smile before turning her back to the little witch. “The faster you move, the sooner I’ll catch up.” She knew Wendy couldn’t remember who she was talking to; ex-general Bae Irene could handle a couple of Magitek Armors. She had no other choice.

“Be careful…!” was all Wendy could say as she hastily looped one of Solji’s arms around her neck and began to drag her away.

As soon as Wendy was safely out of the square, Irene ran through the smoke, jumping over pieces of burning wood, and dodging the crumbling facades of the ruined storefronts. “Hey!” she shouted as she conjured a fistful of ice shards and flung them at the soldiers. One went down under the barrage, and the others turned from finishing off the downed civilians to level their rifles at her.

Ducking and weaving, she sprinted up to them, bodily leaping at one with her saber raised. She felt the heat of an ionized beam just miss her back as the soldier beneath her crumbled to the ground. She tumbled off of his corpse and sprung up to strike the next, noting that the Armors didn’t seem concerned about catching their own in the blasts. If these were the same soldiers who had chased her all the way from Doma months ago, then they must realize what a danger she was.

And oh, what a danger she was.

With her sword raised high, she caught the blast of another Armor and brought her crackling blade down deep into the shoulder of an imperial. She swung him to the side and kicked him away into another soldier as he charged up to her with his longsword drawn.

She spun quickly and just managed to lop off the end of another soldier’s rifle as he pulled the trigger. The shot went wide and sent cracks racing down the barrel of his gun, rendering the weapon useless. An ice shard to the gut brought him to his knees and Irene left him to bleed out.

The Armors were maneuvering around the square as she continued to pick off the remaining infantry, and Irene struggled to keep them all in her line of vision. She needed them to focus their attention on her to buy all the others time to round up whatever villagers survived, and evacuate. Their plan to drive out the Empire was secondary at this point, and Irene was becoming increasingly convinced that a tactical retreat would need to be called.

But how could she sound a retreat if she was alone? No, unless help arrived soon, there would be no retreating.

That’s when she took her first hit: a bullet just below her left shoulder, lodging itself deep in her bicep. Then she felt the of a rifle strike her square in the jaw as she paused in surprise. Her vision swam and the square tilted dangerously, but she willed herself to stay conscious. She whirled, cutting and slashing until the immediate threats had been dropped, but as she tried to steady herself, wiping at the tears in her eyes from the smoke, she could see the Magitek Armors closing in. Six of them.

She smiled faintly. If there were only six as Yeri had reported, then they were all here with her - at least that part of the plan was going according to her designs. Quickly, she conjured another dagger of ice and flung it up at one of the pilots, only for it to harmlessly ricochet off the metal plating of the cockpit as he ducked. The bullet in her arm had done its damage and the searing pain even from just throwing that one bit of ice made her arm drop limply to her side. Whatever blood wasn’t absorbed by Moonbyul’s jacket trickled down to her fingers where it dripped steadily onto the ash-covered cobblestone.

With a deep breath, shuddering against the dull ache of her jaw, she raised her blade into the air preemptively, ready to catch the first beam of whichever Armor decided to fire first. But if even two of them shot at once, she would be in serious trouble. Three on one might have been pushing it, but as Irene took a careful step backwards, feeling a charred piece of wood crumble under the sole of her boot, she knew this was beyond her abilities.

In a brief moment of regret, she realized Wendy could have ended this fight in the blink of an eye. She recalled that apocalyptic inferno the Empire’s Witch had unleashed on that platoon of soldiers, killing them where they stood from the sheer heat of her attack alone, before the flames had ever reached them. But no, even in a situation like this, she would never call upon Wendy to do such a monstrous thing. Hadn’t she sworn against ever letting Wendy use her powers like that ever again?

Hadn’t she sworn to become a monster herself so Wendy wouldn’t have to be?

In times of great desperation, remember we guide and protect you.

With a hiss of pain, Irene reached into the pocket of her long coat and felt the glassy shard of Shiva’s magicite, cool against her blood-stained fingertips. Yes, this was it - the moment Phoenix had spoken of. She pulled the magicite out and held it up, just as she felt the hot energy of a Magitek Armor’s beam strike her upraised sword.

She fell to one knee from the force of the blast, as she clutched the remnant of Shiva to her chest, squinting up at the Armors as they lumbered forward. And for once, not as a curse, Irene called Shiva’s name.

“Shiva,” she hissed as she rose to her feet. “I need your strength.”

She felt the magicite pulse against her, and an indescribable cold spread across her torso, too intense for her to even gasp at the shock. And like a handful of snow, she felt the shard melt under her palm as it was absorbed through her shirt into her chest. A deep freeze clutching at her heart - it was like she could feel the ice splintering through her very veins, and she crouched in pain, unable to do more than grit her teeth against the chill that consumed her.

But just as quickly as it had begun, it was over, and as Irene slowly stood, she finally exhaled. It was a long, deep sigh that clouded from her lips in a subzero wisp as the temperature around her began to drop.

“Sir?” she heard one of the soldiers ask as the Armors came to a halt.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Irene finally raised her head and opened her eyes, and she could see the pilots visibly recoil.

“It’s nothing, hold the line!”

“But sir-”

Irene slowly raised her saber above her head again, but this time it wasn’t in defense.

The pilots stirred, and one began hastily unbuckling his harness.

“Fire! FIRE!!!” the troop leader screamed as his cannon began to glow.

But she didn’t give them the chance. With one sweeping gesture of her blade, a hush settled over the square. An eerie, oppressive silence, like the kind that greets an early riser after a night of heavy snowfall.

With that single move, all six of the Magitek Armors had been frozen solid. Even the smoke of the square had dissipated, as a frost covered everything in her line of sight, mixing into a pale grey sludge with the ash. Irene extended her arm in front of herself, the pain a mere memory as the streaks of blood stained her deep blue-tinged skin and the golden bangles that adorned her wrist. With a gaze as icy as the rest of the scene around her, she regarded the frozen soldiers with stern indifference. The freeze had already stopped their internal processes and crystallized all of the moisture in their bodies down to the cellular level. They were already dead.

She slowly curled her fist and, as Shiva had unwittingly shown her back in Vector, Irene snapped her fingers, shattering the Magitek Armors and their pilots into a diamond dust that silently rained down onto the cobblestone.

And with a tinkle of gold and a clattering of steel, Irene too crumbled to the ground, finally succumbing to exhaustion.

She hoped it had been enough.