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"No," Crone said sharply when Jillian made an attempt at answering Salas' question as to their location and the outcome of the Battle of Anaxim. Gerald himself had turned on the rock he was sitting on entirely, facing away from their campfire now so that he could more easily watch the unfolding events that appeared to now center around Crone. "If everyone important had been spared the embrace of death, not a soul in our fair forest would have passed on at the hands of the villainous intruders. Everyone is important, naught is expendable."
Somewhat taken aback by how fiercely this ancient and powerful woman defended a pointless and idealistic philosophy like that, even in this situation, Gerald's eyes narrowed as he struggled to understand the inner workings of this character. She had been rather distant with him when he had visited her in the forest and spoken about little else than his own abilities and how they could use them against the Swallower of Worlds; she had seemed so rational back then that the warlock had assumed she was like him, a person whose focus was always the end objective at any cost, but her words now suggested differently... Really, how could someone this old be so naive? But then, she had taken part in planning how to deal with Hazzergash and the Crusader's Guild, albeit briefly, as she left most of it up to the other guardians. She had known that many of her subjects would die, he was sure of it. Perhaps it was less about idealism and more about hope? To desire something even though one knows it is impossible to achieve? It was possible.
"And to declare the battle decidedly our loss would be to do our achievements injustice," the huddled figure continued, her way of speaking starting to slightly irk Gerald. "As you truthfully noted our enemy failed to obtain what he sought, and furthermore he lost all but a handful of the followers he brought to our forest alongside himself. I would label it a mutual defeat, if an evaluation had to be made in terms of victors and losers."

When the witch inquired about the crone's identity, however, all the old woman did was to shoot what seemed like a weary look at Renold, slowly nodding her head at him once before she lowered her gaze once more and seemed to lose interest in the situation and sort of just stared off into space.
"She calls herself Crone, and not even Anaxim itself knew her by any other name than that, little one," the green dragon began to explain, still lying down but with his head held high on his serpentine neck. "Of us the Guardians of Anaxim she is the oldest and most powerful, even though she is a little one like you, a human. She was our leader, and she wields all schools of magic, from the divine magic of Reina to the sinister witchcraft of black magic." The dragon chuckled to himself, looking at Jillian with eyes that gleamed with humor. "But she is a secretive sort, friend; I've known her for the better part of a millennium, and that's all I've really learned about her in that time. She's old, wise and powerful, even more so than myself."
"There exists no requirement for you to discern my nature more closely than that," Crone said, apparently deciding to rejoin the conversation once the subject of her identity was over with. Quickly muttering something under her breath she suddenly waved with both of her hands, flinging one in the direction of Gerald and letting the other sweep over Jillian's body from toe to top, white light shining from her palms as she did so that - much to Gerald's surprise - immediately banished all symptoms of magical exhaustion from their bodies, healing them both completely. All so nonchalantly and swiftly; the warlock could barely believe how powerful this woman was!
Having done that Crone looked at each of the three non-guardians - Jillian, Salas and Gerald - in turn before speaking again. "What bears greater relevance to all of us is your intentions, you who came from the outside to defend our home. What is your next objective?"

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The woman watched the curious acrobatic endeavors of her second opponent with calm interest once she had removed herself from immediate danger - presuming that the Fixer did not teleport to her, of course, or aim another ranged attack at her from his perch - trying to estimate the abilities and manner in which this new adversary moved. Analyzing her enemies' skills and powers was almost a necessity for her to stand even the slightest chance against these two; with one being able to teleport effortlessly and attack from range and the other apparently being capable of quite remarkable feats of agility, guarding against the attacks of both could prove impossible.
She did gain one bit of valuable insight simply by observing the others during her moment's respite, though, which came from the way the second, unknown enemy stopped to presumably glare at the Fixer for a brief time after having evaded the deflected weapon. Though this character's face was hidden behind its strange mask its body language betrayed its momentary hostile preposition towards her primary target. It seemed that whatever alliance bound these two together was much looser than she had first assumed, if they could be pushed to the verge of turning against one another by such a small accident as what had occurred between them. At best this could mean that they were really not together at all but just both viewed her as an enemy for some reason, but at worst this was but another clever deception on the Fixer's part to make her lower her guard a little. Maybe they could be made to target each other instead of her? No, that would be unlikely, seeing as they had worked with the common purpose of defeating her thus far; it was more likely that they would fight each other after she had been killed only. At the very least this should mean that they were not accustomed to cooperating, which meant that it was less likely that they performed any coordinated maneuvers. It could still happen, and she needed to beware of such, but the chance of such a thing to result in an inevitable defeat for her was not as great as she had feared.

And indeed it seemed that just an instant later the two reached accordance with one another anew, for as the Fixer spoke menacingly to her in response to her question his staff-wielding comrade turned his fury away from his fellow mask-bearer and rushed at her, automatically taking the higher priority since a threat to her person was inevitably more urgent to pay attention to than the words of another. She tried to listen to the speaker as she prepared to deal with her attacker, but she could not let herself be distracted; she wanted to hear their evaluation of her situation. She [I]needed[/I] the evaluation of someone else, as she was not allowed to make that estimation herself.
[I]Those movements are not within human ability,[/I] she thought, admittedly surprised by the sheer acceleration demonstrated by this masked character, not to mention the inhuman speeds he achieved at the end of that acceleration. Even though she had only removed herself from her enemies by a couple of dozen feet this man ran towards her at speeds that could probably compete with that of a galloping horse, if not beat it altogether. And the way his staff moved as he swiftly approached her... she could tell just by looking at it that there was a strength behind it that was disproportional to the build of its wielder. [I]He is not only agile and can somehow hide from my magical detection, but also possesses unnatural speed and strength? Were these properties obtained through the Grand Master as well?[/I]
There was not much that the woman could do against this man's fierce attack; he was moving too fast for her to be able to properly dodge a weapon with the kind of reach his staff had, and if she estimated the force behind its movements correctly it would easily be able to break her guard if she tried to block it with her sword. If she tried either of those things the best she could hope for was for her to be left open to a follow-up attack and probably finished quickly, although it seemed more likely that she would be fatally wounded by this attack alone. Ordinary fighting with her level of ability would not be enough to handle this attack...
Luckily she was not an ordinary fighter, and although the speed and strength of her opponent's attack was certainly impressive to say the least, its movements did telegraph how and where the blow would eventually land relatively clearly, allowing her to anticipate it. Raising her empty left hand as though to block the attack with the naked palm of her hand, she moved her thumb back up to the side of her index finger, as she had when first engaging the presumed Fixer... and rubbed against it, erasing energy-changed the sigil she had drawn there.

When her enemy's blow landed it was met not by soft flesh and fragile bones, but by a foot-wide circular magical barrier centered on the middle of her palm. Hard and rigid the colorless and translucent shield absorbed the impact of the strike, preventing it from reaching her in the first place, but then immediately shattered like glass and dissipated; she had only stored enough energy in the [I]Protect[/I]-seal to take one blow of that caliber, so she had to make sure not to give this man the chance to get in a second. With any luck having a swing that powerful blocked completely would stagger the masked man briefly, although with his strength and speed chances were that he would recover quickly. She had to act even faster... only she realized too late that she would not be allowed to.
Only then did she realize that the pattern of the Fixer's speaking - pausing in mid-sentence for emphasis as he did - suggested that he was about done talking, and the threat in his voice would have reached her even if she had not listened to his words with half an ear, absorbing enough of the other's mutterings to understand his assessment of her circumstances. The Fixer had stressed that her circumstances were not desperate in his eyes, but the reasoning he presented this by was flawed, based on a different view on the situation in general and different principles from the ones she was taught to work by. He had said that her circumstances were not desperate, but he had also emphasized that he considered her defeat - her death, even - a certainty. If victory for her was extremely improbable to the point of impossibility, and defeat practically inevitable, those circumstances seemed within the parameters of how 'desperate circumstances' had been described to her. The Fixer had disapproved of her taking desperate measures into use, but his justification of this was faulty; his continued attempts to intimidate her had provided her with appraisal from another source than herself to justify taking those very same measures into use.
He did not give her a chance of doing so, however; the moment he had finished speaking she sensed the now-familiar burst of energy that marked a teleportation, and it only took some very basic tactical foresight and a quick redirection of her magical senses to confirm that this wily warrior was now behind her. She moved as quickly as she possibly could, her entire body moving in coordination as her left hand dropped away from her crumbling barrier and to her right hip, grasping for the hilt of her second sword there with its demon skull-guard grinning evilly as though in anticipation of finally being unleashed from its scabbard. Her right hand swung to the side, the blade of her runesword held upright in her hand to guard as large a portion of her wounded side against a possible horizontal swing, all while she turned her body to halfway face this new immediate threat against her and moved to what had previously been her left, hoping to evade a possible attack that was not a horizontal swing. Judging by the weapons she had seen the Fixer use thus far it seemed unlikely that he had anything suitable for thrusting, but a vertical or semi-vertical slash was still a possibility. And through it all she muttered arcane words under her breath, forming a verbal-only spell in the midst of combat.
Once again her runesword found the chain of the Fixer's weapon and interfered with its trajectory... but this time she could not fling it aside quickly enough. All catching the chain of the weapon served to do was to make the object at its end strike her chest instead of her throat; it was fortunate that the object attacking her now was not the bladed end of the weapon, or she would have died. As it was she probably broke several ribs, but hopefully she escaped lethal damage.

[I]I need a direction,[/I] she thought, drawing her second sword with its bizarre twin blades wrapping around each other in an extremely tight spiral that gave them an integrity that was actually stronger than if they had been only one, without offering sacrificing any significant amount of cutting-capacity. Embedded into the two blades, distributed along the cores of each of them and placed so that the sword remained symmetrical, were a total of twenty-six little oval stones, black with a metallic gleam. The demon skulled sword was brandished in the direction of the staff-wielder, and while her left hand did this, her right hand flicked her wrist to send the chain caught on it and the weight at its end towards the ground and to the side. Words still formed on her lips, incredibly swift and barely audible; casting spells this quickly with only the verbal component was very dangerous, but the situation was desperate. [I]Every direction is obstructed except... up.[/I]
She finished the spell while still encircling herself with her dual sweeping blades, and the magic responded to the instructions of her mind immediately. For an instant a faint white aura wrapped around her legs, then rushed downwards and converged below her feet... then a flash of light originated from there, and abruptly the woman was propelled skyward at blinding speeds. The next second she found herself in the air some thirty feet above her enemies' heads, her velocity having died as instantaneously as it had been gained and leaving her about to plummet back where she had come from, into the waiting hands of her opponents.
If she touched the ground again she was dead, at least while both of them were fighting at full capacity; if she hesitated for too long, even if she could stay in the air, the Fixer would teleport to her and kill her, presuming of course that her flinging the weighted end of his weapon away did indeed prevent him from throwing it towards her while staying on the ground. She had hit him with the light-beam earlier, as he had dodged it rather than teleport; his teleportation had limits. If she was quick enough, acted unpredictably enough, she could hit him before he could react. She had no time, she had to act instantly... They were directly below her; releasing the [I]Lightning[/I]-seal on her runesword in their direction should hit them both. There was no way they could evade that.
She jerked her runesword downward, even as her two-bladed demon blade was raised high above her head, ready to slash. She began forming the syllables that would unleash a devastating bolt of lightning upon her target and his accomplice...

Pain. Hot, searing pain. Incomprehensible pain. Her chest and back felt heavy. Her entire lower body ceased responding to her will. A wicked metal spike protruded through the front of her coat, at the middle of her chest right beneath the collarbone; a metal spike that penetrated all the way through her torso, measuring a little more than thirty inches from its point along its curved-conical beak-like length to where it connected to its hilt, which was a three-foot long pole of steel.
She could not speak... her hands lost their grip on her swords. In a spray of blood her upper body jerked forward with the force of the weapon that had just punched through her. She did half a somersault on her way down, then hit the ground hard with her shoulders and head first, then falling onto her back, pressing the weapon even further into herself with her own weight.
"Fin'ly she drew it," a male voice called from a nearby rooftop as her vision faded, sounding amused and happy. Her swords clattered to the ground near her; her enemies would be very close. It did not matter. She was defenseless. Defeated. Dead. "Di'n't wanna hav'ta save 'er. Easier this way.
One down, eleven to go."