...Alcerys found the elevator to the mayor’s office, finding its doors to be open and a key hanging out of the slot beneath the operating lever. The words “You’re Welcome - L. S.” were smudged onto one of the inner panels. Its steady rise through the floors, the sound of the elevator’s workings, was soon cut through by the sound of two voices arguing in Pateirian. The man sounded irate, while the woman exuded a vitriolic sort of calm. Her voice was distorted, but somehow, even amidst the distortion Alcerys felt a pang of familiarity. Much of the argument she couldn’t make out, not until she could already see her destination was she close enough. “What do you mean we can’t call on reinforcements?! They’re only a few days away!” “We can’t. The Grekurian Statehood has already contacted us regarding their intent to reclaim occupation of the city in light of the recent followup attacks, and our claim to the city was already anchored purely in lack of pre-existing Grekurian presence. If our present forces are lost, so will our claim to Rigport.” “They planned this shitshow. I just know it. Filthy fucking kiddy-diddlers, should’ve solved the Grek problem once and for all when we had the chance.” “How can the Statehood and Ikesian holdouts be behind the attacks at the same time?” Even from inside the lift, Alcerys heard the smugness behind that question. The woman asking it already knew the answer. As the ride neared its end Alcerys bent the First Arm behind her back to conceal it, gripping the Eye in her palm and mentally preparing so she could have the phantom limb lash out at a moment’s notice. “Isn’t there some Grek ex-hunter playing provisional governor for one of the holdouts? Could be them.” Before the woman responded the elevator reached the office, its cagelike safety door sliding out of the way and leaving Alcerys faced with two figures. One was Cao Hu, standing next to the pushed-aside mayor’s desk, already staring right through her, brow furrowed and face scrunched in indignation. The other was the Lady in Red, calmly leaning up against the old throne. “I knew it. I told you it was some Inquisitor fuckup!” he proclaimed, still in Pateirian, turning to the Lady in Red briefly. “Let me guess, they sent you to kill me. What’re you supposed to be in the first place, some failed Inquisitor?” smugged the general in Grekurian, slowly walking from the mayor’s desk. “Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. Your ill-conceived attempt at a redo of the Colonies was doomed from the start, I was merely sent to act as a catalyst for its going up in flames. This isn’t Pargona, and I don’t have to act with diplomatic appearances in mind.” “Couldn’t the pederasts in your joke of a government at least muster one proper gasmask freak? This is just insulting,” the general emitted a laugh that belied a bubbling cauldron of fury. He gestured with a hand, and an elaborately decorated cold-iron sabre flew out of a sheath that had until then been concealed behind the throne. It floated just over his right shoulder with a thin Fog umbilicus connecting it to its wielder, while it pointed at Alcerys. “Or- Wait, I must be getting it wrong. They sent you to die, to dispose of a liability and create a diplomatic martyr in one move, is that it?” “You would do better to avoid projecting your own sins onto others, general. It only makes the truth all too obvious,” Alcerys spat back in perfect Pateirian, stepping off the elevator. “That you really got cursed for screwing nubile Scorchlander slave-boys, I mean. Or, perhaps, is even the supposed blood curse just a cover for your extensive collection of venereal diseases?” The muscle beneath his right eye twitched, as did his fingers. Now was her chance. She was certain that the Halo could stop his blade at least once, and if she landed a decisive strike now, it would irreversibly throw off his equilibrium. It rocketed forward, zigzagging through the air and trailing Fog, its movements already having accounted for any conceivable fencer’s counter she could’ve brought to bear with Emberthorn. Simply letting the Eye fall out of her hand was enough to drive her counter. The incomprehensible influx of divine fury magnified her intent to such a degree as to send the First Arm ripping through the air, with such velocity even Alcerys didn’t see it before it slammed right into Cao Hu’s stomach and sent him flying backwards. Like a phantom gunshot carrying enough Ignis to make a grown man pop like a balloon, which she knew would barely have a meaningful disabling effect on Cao, and only once before his body acclimated to the shock. His Flying Sword had threatened to slice her head clean off, had her halo not whipped it from the air, even if doing so was nearly taxing enough to make it demanifest, its flames flickering and sputtering. “You need to understand that I am something far worse than an Inquisitor. I am the Third Renegade, I am Alcerys, the Charred Judge,” she said for perhaps the third or fourth time that day, and she reveled in saying it that time the most of all, neither able nor willing to stop the grin that grew on her face. She moved quickly whilst speaking, her speech partially intended to divert Cao Hu’s attention, to let her to reposition and refocus, and it seemed to be working. From the perspective of the elevator, Cao Hu now stood to the left of the throne, whilst Alcerys stood to the right. “Unlike my Inquisitorial ex-colleagues, I have no law, no restriction, no line in the sand, there is nothing the Statehood can do to stop me from carrying out my divinely-appointed duty,” Alcerys continued, diverting some attention towards the Woman in Red, who seemed conspicuously uninterested in interfering. She even gestured that she wouldn’t involve herself. The woman’s bright-red, claw-like nails stood out almost as much as the brief flash of gold and red inside her sleeve. “By the authority of the Omniudex, the Black Dragon of the Ninth Wind, I shall judge and punish down all those who think themselves beyond reproach. And you...” She pointed Emberthorn at that writhing mass of flesh on the ground, puking up the bloody, boiling contents of his stomach, coughing up puffs of crimson-tinged Fog, and wildly gesturing in an attempt to regain control of his weapon. “...You are most guilty indeed.” “SILENCE!” howled the general, slipping back into Pateirian as he gestured to make his sword throw itself at Alcerys. Its immense velocity forced her to dedicate fully to avoidance, knowing full well that it could get into the gaps of her armor. With a surge of Fog and a spark of intent Emberthorn’s entire surface became as a porcupine, its quills spreading all over and briars slithering from its crossguard in a spiraling pattern down its now club-like blade, and with this deformed horror she caught Cao Hu’s Flying Sword. Indeed she caught it, its impeccable edge slowing only briefly as it mowed her own weapon’s quills, but that was enough. It was enough for her to use the First Arm to snatch the blade out of the air, and in turn, throw it behind herself as she took off sprinting at Cao with the intention of placing the general’s own body between her and his weapon. The general had just gotten to his feet, his face twisted by pain, and despite the bloody bubbles forming around his mouth, performed an immensely complex full-body gesture with utter perfection, once more forcing Alcerys onto the back foot as she had to fend off the nearly-imperceptible onslaught of his Flying Sword. Lungful after lungful burned just to keep it away from her, from fueling the First Arm, recharging the Visage after it deflected strikes that would’ve landed, to accelerating Emberthorn’s regeneration. It was harrowing to defend for only a few seconds… But she could bear it. Even as the old scar on her back began wrenching again. In this game of endurance, Alcerys couldn’t have been more certain of her eventual victory. A fact that Cao Hu must’ve realized just as well for he stopped playing it only moments later, closing the distance of his own volition, and with each meter, the precision and savagery of his weapon grew. Despite his state, even as he still struggled to breathe properly and coughed up chunks, he was the one on the offensive. His raw reactions were slower than Alcerys’ own, and despite that, his martial and tactical skill was simply good enough to more than compensate using his Flying Sword. Even the fact she could just grab his weapon out of the air and toss it about didn’t seem to impede him much. She needed… Yes. That could work. With a subtle shift of her strategy, Alcerys maneuvered towards Cao Hu to place pressure upon him whilst in reality dedicating every sliver of focus to defense, meticulously controlling her own breathing for lack of a means to store essentia elsewhere just yet. It was pure defensive optimization, a complex dance of feints, parries, and strikes that were destined to be stopped. Combat and theatre in equal measure, deception meant to fool Cao Hu into thinking he was winning. It wasn’t hard to be convincing, since he really had been winning up until the last moment. Until she finally grasped Emberthorn with both hands, burning two deep breaths just as the Eye instantaneously stuck to the blade’s crossguard. Eagerly, even. In a split-second Emberthorn was engulfed in an inferno, and murder flashed across Cao Hu’s face as he took what he saw to be an opening… But Alcerys had counted on just that. The time it took him to recover from a deflected strike was brief, but sufficient. Alcerys had two means of deflection that did not rely on her hands in the First Arm and the Visage, plus her actual armor as a last line of passive defense. She charged at him openly, Emberthorn trailing an inferno of blue fire. As satisfying as it would’ve been to bring the Calamity Sword to bear against him, right now it was a pointless risk, lacking a means to wrench open a wide-enough opening for the invocation. With a sudden gesture the old general called his blade to his side in a flash of light, and it swirled about him with such velocity as to become an impermeable blur. Alcerys cared not. If she could occupy his weapon with defense it could not lash out at her, and in turn, she could afford to drop her defenses at least partially. Divine fire flaring and swirling, cold-iron clanging against cold-iron, quills being flung both with and without intent, the room filling with Fog even from the negligible exhalations of both combatants. Alcerys didn’t want to use the First Arm, not yet, as she built up a charge within it and kept it in place as another layer of armor for the time being. Cao Hu tried a number of tricks. Having his sword trail a conjured wire to entangle or trip her, forming an elaborate defensive projection using the Flying Sword to produce the glyphs, even throwing his blade out behind her and employing some manner of Fog-walking to switch places with it in an attempt to catch her off-guard and create distance. His stamina clearly waning and desperation growing, the general’s attacks subtly grew further apart, less precise, his feints easier to read. The battle went from perilous to merely difficult… And Alcerys decided enough was enough. Separating the Eye from her sword, she pulled out her gun and took a shot at the rotten immortal, swiftly walking towards him. Another, then another, working the lever by spinning the whole gun. As she walked she gathered a mass of Ignis within Emberthorn, waiting until she counted out her last bullet, gesturing with it still in hand to set loose a strike from the First Arm, detonating the Second Arm well before it would’ve hit Cao. The shaped charge bloomed outward instantaneously without a target to penetrate, enveloping the old man in a tidal wave of blue fire before he could muster a proper dodge. He appeared several meters off to the side, having panickedly swapped places with his sword, though perhaps it was the good call, seeing as only his left arm alongside a portion of his chest and face were burned. Reeling, stumbling, wheezing, composure broken, the cursed general struggled to stand. Even his Flying Sword wavered in mid-air, despite the fact it was an artifact able to fly under its own power. It was fine. Holding Emberthorn in a reverse-grip with the quills facing forward, she swung upward and sent a hailstorm of flaming cold-iron raining down on him. Even mustering what was left of his stamina to both try dodging and blocking with his weapon, Cao Hu couldn’t save himself entirely. A seething grunt of pay erupted from him as he stared up at Alcerys in defiance, drawing in ragged breaths as she approached within a hand’s reach. And indeed she did reach out, grabbing his sword out of the air with the First Arm. Whence it would’ve slipped or forced its way out of her grip before, Cao couldn’t get it free anymore. She looked down at this husk of a once-feared and respected general, and she felt no hate or disdain. Only pity. The Eye, on the other hand, seethed with such fury as no mortal man could muster, for its righteous anger was unlike that of humans. “Your crimes are numerous, your guilt undeniable, your punishment inevitable…” stated the Charred Judge, coldly. Even now she kept Fog-breathing, hoarding aether and funneling half into her blade’s gemstone whilst the other half went towards her constructs “...But I will give you the opportunity for last words. What have you to say in your defense, general?” “My only regret is that I didn’t wipe out those fuckin’ loincloths before they could curse me,” he spat, a demented grin spreading over his features. The man’s mind had already snapped at the realization of his powerlessness in this situation. “But you and yours, you’ll get your due yet. Come on, do what you will. Know that suffering a hundredfold will come to Foreign Devil scum regardless of which subhuman race you come from, which barbaric nation you align wi-” Alcerys grabbed his neck, squeezing until she heard the cartilage pop, then loosened her grip just enough that he could draw in wheezing, shallow breaths. Enough that the skin of his neck could comfortably roast in the First Arm’s fiery grip. First, she roused Emberthorn into growing out its spines, imbuing them with fire before she ran them across his burned arm. Over, and over, and over again, until his entire arm was covered in spines. Secondly, she chose to pluck out one of his eyes, distasteful an act though it was, it was also appropriate. Holding his head still in a vice grip, Alcerys dug the First Arm’s clawed, seething fingers into Cao Hu’s left eye-socket, digging the eye out and cauterizing the inside of the socket with the nerve still left in so that it would have to be painstakingly scraped out if he ever wanted a replacement eye put in. Were circumstances different, she would’ve stopped there, letting him live, suffer, and perhaps find some form of redemption… She had intended to take the sword to his arms, severing his hands that he might not wield a Flying Sword again lest he have them replaced by Ikesian means, as she knew well that the Wall would not let him out. In turn, he could not have his hands replaced in Pateiria. But he had to die. “Were you merely the scum you are, I might’ve let you live. To be an undying reminder of your crimes. But you cannot be suffered to live,” she said, raising her blade to him... Only for him to vanish from her hands, and in her grip was left a second Flying Sword, this one possessing a silver handle set with sapphires instead of its counterpart’s gold and rubies. Before she knew it, the first blade was gone from her sight and she felt the Visage lashing out at something, the subtle recoil of its action suggesting something had nearly just skewered her through the head from behind. Despite everything, Cao Hu stood defiant, snarling and gurgling upon his own blood, wheezing with each breath. He raised a hand to his throat and with the index finger punched a hole into it, and with a sharp yank and a gut-turning pop, forced the cartilage back into shape. With a blood-filled spittle to the side the general summoned both swords to his side, his facial features hardened and his presence magnified ten times over as he roared: “You chickenshit inquisitors don’t know anything about real combat! About real struggle! I’ve choked men to death with by own intestines, cut their throats out with my own shattered bones! What do you know of suffering?! OF REAL WAR?! You call your fucking squabble a war? That’s not real war! A real war ends when a people’s hope for a future is eradicated, when the victors exploit, dominate, and exterminate the losers as they please!” Knees buckled, legs wide, his sole remaining eye staring back with the countenance of a mad beast, Cao Hu exhaled a plume of bloodied Fog, hair-thin threads of silver that spidered from his mouth all over his body contrasting against the red cloud. That was when she realized what was happening - he was puppeting his own body the same way one would puppet a Flying Sword. Alcerys used the time afforded to her in this moment to regain her bearings and adjust her positioning relative to the general. “If you would see me punished, then do it,” howled the general. “Force your truth upon me! Beat a confession out of my broken husk!” “Fine,” spat the Charred Judge, raising her left hand, touching the tip of her thumb to her little finger in a gesture of prayer, and the First Arm’s beastly claws followed suit. The Eye’s own righteous fury mixed and combined with hers, and through this divine spark she roused Emberthorn to a blazing inferno. “If you would reject penance, then GIVE ME YOUR HEAD!” Dedicating herself fully to an all-out assault meant to break the old man’s resolve, Alcerys charged in a zigzagging pattern. She wielded the First Arm as a wildly-flailing whip, its great claws scoring the ground and grabbing Cao’s swords out of the air, creating an opening just long enough to get in. Though Cao Hu moved in an unnatural manner befitting the unnatural way in which he remained upon his feet, hopping to and fro much like a real puppet, it did him no good. With a wide horizontal slash from near-point blank range, Alcerys set loose upon him a veritable tidal wave of divine flame that was too wide for him to evade. Despite that still, he kept on raging against her, ignoring fleshly wounds all together for the sole purpose of killing her… And despite his redoubled focus, despite his wielding of two Flying Swords, Alcerys now knew his favored angles of attack, knew what telegraphs to look out for not in his own body, but in the Flying Sword’s movement. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Over, and over, and over again, he desperately repeated desperate, predictable moves, whilst uncannily skittering and hopping about to avoid her pursuit, knocking books and baubles off the shelves. The man looked like a meaty, half-burned spider. His lackluster offense betrayed the reality that Cao Hu couldn’t handle puppeting himself whilst maintaining his previously unrelenting, barely predictable combat style. Alcerys watched closely for a short while, building the pattern in her mind, before she snatched the silver-hilted Flying Sword. Setting loose a more focused flame-wave to drive Cao in a particular direction, she threw the silver-hilted blade towards where she thought he would land… And with a noiseless gasp and the scraping of metal wedged into stone, the scimitar impaled him through the kidney. It twitched and wobbled about as Cao struggled to get it free, but neither he nor the artifact had the wherewithal to pry it loose. Clearly aware of his doom, the impaled general set his holden-hilted sword upon Alcerys with a burst of renewed savagery, simultaneously screaming an incantation in Pateirian. His body began to swell up, strange light shining from within, and Alcerys instinctively knew it must’ve been some sort of greater suicide tool. If she didn’t get out of the blast zone, she would… ...be fine. For in a split-second the Woman in Red - who had up until now stood nearly statuesque by the throne - rushed over to Cao Hu’s side, and with a blade of gold and red that protruded from her right forearm she disemboweled him, plunging her left, clawed hand into the wound. She ripped out an etched chunk of jade that absolutely seethed with arcane energy, holding it up within Cao’s disbelieving sight. “You’ve become a liability, general,” she said in perfect Ikesian, reaching up to her face. In a single motion she pulled off the mask and tossed it aside, disdainfully staring down at the general before she spat into his face. Alcerys’ attention turned towards her, and the Charred Judge had to get an ironclad grip on herself to keep her composure. Still, a single utterance slipped out at the sight of the woman’s robe slipping from her shoulders and her face being unmasked, “You…” “Leave disbelief for later, Renegade, I do not intend to impede your mission,” Red cut in, jumping backwards out of Cao’s desperately-grasping reach. She raised her right hand, and upon a short series of one-handed signs, a Fog vortex formed above her palm, into which she dropped the jade chunk. The horns upon her head pulsed with light, accompanied by a brief, pained grimace. “Strike him down if you would do so. I will not interfere. My sole charge by this senile idiot’s side was to prevent him from doing something monumentally idiotic that would harm the empire at large…” continued red, looking to Alcerys before she cast another disdainful stare at Cao. “Such as trying to blow up one of the few Fog-sailing lighthouses on the continent. Come now, general. Did you really think I was unaware of the direct precursor to Emperor’s Mercy talismans?” Alcerys was stunned by Red’s presence here in no small part because of the apparent partial reversal of her innumerable mutations, not to mention her seeming sanity, but rather the absence of something. None of the filth born from abuse of power, from exploitation of one’s lessers, which the Eye of Judgment so swiftly latched onto. Not a single speck of it resided in her soul, and yet, Alcerys felt something ephemeral where that guilt should’ve been. An imprint, as if Red’s very soul had been scoured of what had made her who she was during their previous encounters. The general’s disbelieving eyes glazed over as the emotion left his face, and with the sickening crunching of bone and cartilage his head twisted all the way back. In this backwards-headed manner, the cursed immortal used a silver thread to pull his head by the forehead that he might look at Red directly, and upon his face was the countenance of pure derangement. “Come now, treasonous WHORE. Did you really think I was merely unable to rid myself of the curse?! I saw that those filthy volcano monkeys had given me a precious gift, for it is all too easy to point and proclaim: Here stand those who would bring this curse to an end!” he rambled with an inhuman, gurgling voice, his skin writhing as if he were a sack full of serpents. A deluge of smoke and ash escaped from every-which orifice and the very pores of his skin, and as he spoke his proclamation, his hand shot out to point first at Alcerys, then at the Red Mantis. A moment later the general’s body was enveloped in this tenebrous substance, horrendous fleshly noises emanating from within as the shape of a lying-down man slowly rose into an upright position, leaving the sword which had pinned him in the ground. Within the smoke, uncountable faces of pain and torment could be seen swirling about, pushing against an immaterial membrane within eyes as glowing coals, and at its center, his own eyes serving as the arcane construct’s, the general floated. His body was twisted, skin sloughing off in long strips, musculature unwinding, veins and nerves visibly stretching out throughout the smoke-thing. Cao Hu was broken, twisted, ripped apart alive, and yet his voice was that of victory. Manic, deranged, driven-mad by pain victory. “And like the mindless beasts who created it, so too does the curse abide by a strong master’s command!” boasted the curse-bound general, his horrific form gliding across the floor. “All this hate, all this wrath, that which my actions had so exquisitely cultivated… It shall be my armor and my sword, and with it, I shall-” “-usurp the stars of calamity which shine in the heavens!” finished the Charred Judge, raising the Fiery Eye of Judgment once again that it might clearly see the general, and in that moment, her sword instantaneously burst into a writhing inferno of blue fire, spines, and briars. So intense was the Eye’s reaction to the General’s act of reveling in his guilt that Alcerys was herself enveloped in wisps of blue fire, the First Arm itself growing to grotesque, distended proportions and her halo stoked into a blaze such that briar tendrils swirled around her head . Its thorns grew to be so long they wedged themselves between the plates of her gauntlet, scraping against metal and digging into her flesh, but the inquisitor cared not. She burned lungful after lungful, re-manifesting her halo all over between invoking the Calamity Sword. She looked to Red Mantis, who, without a word spoken, gave a simple nod, herself springing into action and performing a series of gestures, invoking a series of unintelligible utterances under her breath. The horns upon her head shone with iridescent light that hurt to witness even in the corner of one’s eyes, herself grimacing in pain, and yet, it was not she who cried out. It was the cursebound general, whose curse was being given material form, turning from ephemeral smoke to physical entities of conjoined limbs and screaming mouths, wrought of tar-like liquid - spiritual impurity rendered down to a material form. They erupted from his form onto the ground and rose up to claw at him. A half-dozen malformed bodies, all piling on top of one another and clawing at his already fraying material form. In the end, the curse’s objective was still to torment him, and in facilitating it, Red directed its ire away from herself. “CEASE YOUR HERETICAL MAGICKS!” howled the general, reaching out for Red, smoky tendrils lashing out from his arm that the mutant cut from the air with as if they were physical whilst moving out of the way. Whence her golden arm-blade severed them, smoke became as though tar and splashed across the polished floor. “I barely need to do anything to give the curse tangible form, now that you’ve so graciously drawn it to the surface for me!” she rebuked between lines of incantation. In these few precious seconds when the general’s attention sat elsewhere, Alcerys burned lungful after lungful of Fog, building up a massive Second Arm charge, reinforcing her constructs, and stoking Emberthorn’s flames in preparation to set it loose. She gripped her sword with both hands, and exploiting the general’s provoked state, took a shot at him with the First Arm, feigning a detonation from behind to get him to move before whipping it around even further and hitting him from the front. The deluge of blue fire briefly washed away the smoke that enveloped his frayed flesh and set his body alight, and yet the smoke returned a split-second later. At first the fire raged as it burned the impurities for fuel, but soon enough, it was smothered by the overwhelming outpour of impurity… But the distraction had achieved its purpose, giving the First Arm enough time to wrap all the way around and its individual threads to tangle together, immobilizing the general. It was bound to break in the span of seconds. That was time enough. One last lung of Fog to feel the flame, the other spent to fuel the beginning of her charge as she howled, invoking a new incantation that was no longer a mere copy. “...THEY ARE THE CALAMITOUS MIRACLE, AND WITH ITS MIGHT THE TYRANTS OF THIS WORLD SHALL BE CAST DOWN!” To refer to the manner in which she wielded this magic as a sword would’ve been… Inaccurate to say the least. Despite the sword that acted as its focus, the technique was no sword, not even in the already loose sense that the Estoras family used. It was a deluge, a writhing, slithering outpour of righteous fury, winding around itself and forming a devouring maw. A veritable serpent wrought of flaming briars and barbed wire, Alcerys’s own power amplified by orders of magnitude through the Eye’s fulgent, divine hatred of tyranny. Even as the Calamitous Miracle surged forth far faster than Alcerys herself could move, however, Cao Hu struggled. He struggled, and soon broke free of both the First Arm’s entanglement and the materialized curse-things grasping at his legs, shattering the former and splattering the latter as his curse-armored form surged away. Past the throne and towards the great windows that lined the wall behind it, Cao Hu fled from the blazing livingmetal serpent that pursued him, and even in this act, he cursed their names. He cursed them, even as the serpent caught up and entangled him, losing its tubular shape and forming an impermeable ball of flames and spikes, crushing and squeezing and smothering the now-falling general. Alcerys and Red were now left to deal with the aftermath of the latter’s strange conjuring magic, all of the impurity left behind reshaping itself into a purulent monstrosity whose sole instinct was to lash out at those who would cut short the suffering of its original victim. “Though I appreciate the help, this thing is of your making. Don’t you dare think of fleeing,” said the Charred Judge to the Red Mantis as she struggled for breath, who scoffed at the mere implication.