From a Modir, even anguish sounded like death. [i]Ablaze[/i] took Quinn’s pain, took that pitiful shriek and morphed it into the low and rumbling beginnings of a battle cry, and when her breath finally caught up with her fury, the roar it released laid low the very wind. She loosed her cannon with enough force to shatter the air with a [i]CRACK[/i] that matched her volume. Above and around her, scores of drones faltered, slamming into one another from the shockwave and falling to the earth in pieces. 

The cannon flipped end ‘round end, and with [i]Ablaze[/i] not far behind it, it seemed that no matter what the swordsman did, it wouldn’t be able to avoid [i]both[/i] of them. 

Perhaps it was the pain, or the panic—both still dragged beneath the surface of her mind, both kicking wildly to emerge—but by the time Quinn would have noticed the cannon hurtling towards, and then through, its own reflection in the air, it was too late. 

The swordsman swiped its blade up, and cleaved clean through the cannon. Unlike the axes, it did not combust and dissolve, its halves merely vanished, and Quinn could still feel it in the ether beyond, tied to her, ready to be reclaimed. 

She could also see, between the two of them, the mirrorlike sheen of a second singularity, and the red eyes behind it. 

It shattered out, and two Modir came barreling through, slamming into her. [i]Ablaze[/i]’s war cry was snuffed as the air was ripped from her lungs. One of the monsters had spear-tackled her at the gut, and the other ‘round her chest. They brought her crashing to the ground, rolling end over end until they came to a stop and both were atop her. 

One had a vicious pair of gauntlets around its forearms, ending in claws sharped and more wicked than either [i]Ablaze[/i] or [i]Blotklau[/i]’s. It used them to clutch Quinn’s arm, to pin it to the ground and pierce her skin at the wrist and shoulder. 

The other bore a mace, which it used to pin her other arm down by the haft. It snarled in Quinn’s face, leaking slaver and ichor onto her. Kick and struggle as she might, against the weight of both monsters she was utterly, helplessly [i]locked[/i]. 

The swordsman approached, and came to stand with a foot on either side of her chest. Behind him [i]Blotklau[/i] still lay motionless, steaming from the wound in her chest but, it seemed, nowhere else. Raising the blade high, the Modir brought it down fast and fierce—

—Into the dirt beside [i]Ablaze[/i]’s head. 

It knelt down, low. One hand came and clutched her by the face, claws digging into her jaw. It pulled her up enough for their faces to be close, enough for her to see into its deep, crimson eyes. Many moments it held her there. A low, gruff sound pushed smoke through its jagged teeth. 

“[color=silver]You.[/color]”

A voice. A man’s voice, rough and low and brimming with contempt. Not a whisper, not a [i]feeling[/i] at the edge of her consciousness, or a sense bubbling up from within her. That was a voice, real and clear and—it wasn’t in her mind. 

“[color=gray]Who is that?[/color]” Besca shouted—she could hear it too? But of course she could.

It was in the comms channel. 

“[color=gray]Who is that?[/color]” Besca repeated. Demanded. “[color=gray]Identify yourself![/color]”

There was no ID, nothing to show, nothing to trace. Just an empty profile hovering beneath her own. The swordsman rumbled again, and Besca was suddenly ejected from the channel. Only Quinn and the stranger remained.

“[color=silver]Do you believe yourself safe, cowering in there?[/color]” he asked, though it seemed more as though he were thinking out loud. “[color=silver]Did you think you could hide from me?[/color]”

Twisting his hand, he brought the blade’s edge up against [i]Ablaze[/i]’s neck. Quinn could feel it digging in, shallow now but for how much longer?

“[color=silver]I found you in Runa. I found you here. Quinnlash. Loughvein. Yes, I know you well.[/color]”

The swordsman let go of her face, stood up tall and pulled his sword from the earth. He held it in both hands, blade poised down over her head. 

“[color=silver]This time you will not escape death.[/color]”

Something thrashed within her, so strong and so desperate it was like she could feel her own, plugged-in body convulse. [i]Ablaze[/i] arched, pulled against the other Modir without Quinn’s will, but it was useless. The burning fuller shined in her eyes. The swordsman’s gaze was red doom. 

“[color=skyblue][i]Get the fuck away from her![/i][/color]”

Something crashed into the ground behind Quinn, so hard and sudden that it blasted the four of them with the earthen gore of the hill it had cratered. The swordsman stepped back, vanishing in the storm of dust as the two Modir lunged away. 

Finally free, the unwilling thrashing turned [i]Ablaze[/i] onto her stomach before dying away. The cloud of debris settled, and rising up from it was the shape over another Modir. Tall, so devastatingly thin that its flesh seemed painted over its bones. Ribs burst freely from its chest, curled up and in like a calcified cuirass. Its spine was a mountain range of sharp, bulging ridges that carried on long past its back, into a black, spinal tail that ran almost as long as it was tall. Twin horns curved backwards from just above its ruby eyes, over its head and back into tips that curled upwards. It was horrifying, and monstrous, and was in every way a nightmare to behold. 

It looked like a [i]Dragon[/i]. 

Her hands splayed out into long, thin fingers with too many digits. They burned with black light. She brought them up to her face, into her mouth, one hand down and one hand up, and then she [i]pulled[/i]. Hard. Hard like she meant to rend her jaw apart, to tear her head in two. Instead the black light flashed, and her fingers pulled through her skin as if phasing right through it. In their wake, she had ripped her weapon into being. 

It was her mouth. 

A hundred razor teeth gleamed with ivory fire, the inside of her maw was ringed with light and steel and it carried to the outside of her jaw, like [i]armor[/i]. 

[i]Dragon[/i] took a long, deep breath., head tilted towards the sky, jaw clamped shut. The brilliant light gathered in her throat, pooled in her mouth. The armor about her cheeks bulged with barely-contained power. The clawed Modir and the one with the mace charged, screeching fury and lusting for blood. 

She lurched forward, and from her mouth shot a beam of pure white light, as thin as her withered limbs. It carved the clawed Modir in half, and carried on past it, where it pierced the distant hills, and then further, slicing the center mountain of the dividing range clean apart. 

The Modir and the swordsman paused, then split. Quinn heard Dahlia scream bloody, enraged murder over the comes, and [i]Dragon[/i] projected it in a high-pitched and gut-curling roar. She charged for the swordsman, crushing the clawed Modir’s head underfoot. 

The Modir with the mace turned like it meant to aid the swordsman, but as if by some unspoken command, redirected its attention to [i]Ablaze[/i]. It readied its weapon, raised it high, and charged.