Lemony didn't stop.
He hadn't slept, he hadn't eaten, and he certainly hadn't felt like he was winning at this life thing yet. Since this whole nightmare started, he was just a body moving through the dark. He felt like an empty shell, an emotionless figure just looking for a reason to exist.
That ended now. He had to beat this Rank 1. He had to prove everything he did with Sissy weren't just for show.
Lemony charged. He threw a heavy punch that Pip blocked with her mechanical arm, and then she grabbed his wrist, twisting it as she landed a sharp kick into his gut. The wind left his lungs, but he didn't let go. He gripped her wooly arms with a strength he didn't know he had.
"Tangle her with your hair!" Lemony roared.
Sissy dived from the sky. Pip realized she was trapped and started screaming.
"Wait! Stop! The government forced me into this! I didn't have a choice!"
Lemony didn't care. He wasn't listening to pathetic excuses. As Sissy's wings and hair wrapped around the girl like a cocoon, Lemony stepped in close. He didn't use a knife. He leaned in and bit her neck.
His teeth sank deep into her soft, wooly throat.
Crunch.
Sissy gasped, her face turning a deep shade of red.
"Lemony..."
He pulled away, and dark blood dripped from his chin onto the snow. Pip's face went a sickly shade of blue, her hands clutching her throat as she wheezed. She tried to ask what he had done to her, but the words wouldn't come out.
Lemony stood up, wipes the red from his mouth, and looked at the dying girl.
"We're done here, Sissy. Let's go help them with the centaur."
Sissy shook her head, looking worried.
"But we can't! We're supposed to go back to Malphas' lair, remember?"
Lemony looked toward the fortress walls.
The plan was clear, but his head was spinning with a different kind of hunger.
I want to raise my rank.
As the snow whipped around his face, he saw that same dark figure from the black realm in the corner of his eye.
I want to live too.
I don't want to just survive.
I want to be something.
Sissy kept telling him no, but Lemony wouldn't budge. He looked at her with such a flat, determined stare that she eventually just sighed and gave in. She grabbed him under the arms and beat her wings, lifting them back toward the chaos of Fort Rib.
As they flew through the freezing wind, Lemony looked down at the ground.
"Go find food for the kids and let them eat while we fight. They're probably starving knowing they last ate before the base was invaded."
Sissy smiled at him, a real, soft smile.
"Alright, you grumpy cat. I'll take care of them."
----------------------------------------------------------
"So, are you prepared to die, Lancelot?" the gunslinger asked, his voice rasping through the cold.
Lancelot stood tall, his silver armor catching the flickering torchlight.
"Die? As if a concept so mundane could tether my spirit. You recall our previous encounter, do you not? You were a flickering candle then, unable to pierce the veil of my superiority. Do you truly believe these wretched, puny creatures beside you will alter the trajectory of your inevitable demise?"
For a split second, the world blurred. The gunslinger saw a flash of a younger centaur, smaller and without the gleaming plates of armor. He was just a trainer then, sweating under the sun, a far cry from the majestic terror he had become. It was a memory of growth, of a time when the power gap wasn't an ocean.
"Does the past really matter?" the gunslinger muttered.
"The past is the only ledger that holds any truth," Lancelot replied, his light blade humming in his hand.
"I remember when you used to drive me to the brink just to refine my form. Now, you are being dominated by the very world you seek to traverse. How droll. You are still a second rank, just as you were then. Nothing has changed. Yet, I find myself curious. Why help them? Why this realm?"
"I can't tell you. Words aren't enough for these people," gunslinger said, managing to reply despite the insults.
"You're a real one, gunslinger!" Pippin chirped from inside the coat.
Lancelot's lip curled. He pressed a small device against his ear and a chilling smile spread across his face. He blurred into motion. The gunslinger snapped his fingers, a blue portal swallowing them just as a beam of light sliced the air.
Pippin, tucked away in the fabric, saw it. A thin, shimmering line of gold cutting through the courtyard. It traced the centaur's path before he even moved.
"Shoot!" Pippin screamed.
The gunslinger fired. Lancelot's eyes widened as the bullet nearly grazed his neck, forcing him to bank hard to the left.
Is this future sight? No. It's my own logic. My brain is calculating his muscle tension and his center of gravity. I'm seeing my own hypothesis in real time.
Floating letters seemed to shimmer in the corner of his vision, forming words in the freezing air: Scholar's Eye.
"That's it!" Pippin gasped.
"Scholar's Eye... my passive!"
Lancelot reared up, his light blade glowing with a blinding intensity. The lines in Pippin's vision turned a violent, pulsing red.
"He's going for a heavy thrust! Shoot now!"
The gunslinger fired again, but Lancelot was a whirlwind of silver and light. He batted the bullet aside and closed the gap, the light blade carving a shallow, cauterized groove across the gunslinger's ribs.
"Argh!" the gunslinger grunted, his boots skidding in the snow.
"I don't know how you're doing this, old man!" Lancelot roared, his voice booming like a pipe organ.
Fiji lunged from the side, a massive stone fist whistling through the air. Lancelot didn't even look. He dropped his weight and skidded under the punch, his rear hooves kicking out and shattering a chunk of Fiji's rocky thigh.
CRACK!
Fiji groaned, falling to one knee.
"He is too fast!"
"Not for long!" Pippin yelled. "Left side! He's over-extending his reach!"
The gunslinger didn't hesitate. He rolled between Lancelot's legs, firing a tooth-bullet upward. Lancelot twisted, but the projectile tore through the silk of his flank. Before the centaur could recover, Fiji's large hand came down like a falling mountain, pinning one of his two hooves.
"Now!" Pippin screamed.
The gunslinger didn't stop. He punched Lancelot square in the jaw, then fired a shot into his shoulder.
BANG!
Lancelot tried to swing the light blade, but the gunslinger was already inside his guard, delivering another heavy hook to his bloodied face.
THUD!
The centaur stumbled, his majestic poise finally shattering. He was shot, then punched, then shot again in a brutal, rhythmic cycle that left his silver armor dented and stained with his own dark b—
"ARGHHHHH! YOU STUPID COMMONERS!"
He spat a glob of blood into the snow, his face a mess of bruises and torn skin. But even as he panted, his eyes didn't show fear. He began to smile, a wide, terrifying grin that made the hair on the back of Pippin's neck stand up.
"It seems, I must stop treating this as a lesson and start treating it as a slaughter."
Pippin watched the commander struggle to breathe, his silver armor cracked and stained. He looked up at the gunslinger, his voice small and confused.
"How are we doing this? He's a Rank 3. We shouldn't even be able to scratch him this much."
The gunslinger didn't take his eyes off the centaur. He wiped a smear of blood from his mouth with a shaky hand.
"Ranks aren't just about how hard you can punch, kid. They're based on worth. On how much the system thinks you matter. But even a king can bleed if you catch him in the dark."
Truthfully, it was still about strength, a bit.
Lancelot's breathing changed. It wasn't a gasp anymore, but a wet, rhythmic wheeze.
The air around him began to warp.
Biologically, his adrenal glands were firing at a rate that should have burst his heart, flooding his system with a cocktail of neurochemicals that bypassed his pain receptors. His core temperature spiked, causing the snow beneath his hooves to hiss into steam as his cellular metabolism pushed past the limit of structural integrity.
But, in the language of the mountain, it was a message.
This wasn't a duel anymore.
"So be it," Lancelot whispered, his eyes glowing with a frenzied, manic light.
"You fools! This will be my theater of slaughter!"
This was his Heraldic Active. A heraldic ability purely based on killing instincts, while providing maximum buffs to the user.
He called it the Slaughterhouse of the Fools.
The atmosphere shifted. The light blade in his hand screamed.
Lancelot moved, and this time, even the Scholar's Eye couldn't keep up. The lines in Pippin's vision shattered into a chaotic mess of red fractals.
THWACK!
Lancelot's rear hoof caught Fiji square in the chest. The stone giant's torso cracked from collarbone to waist, sending boulders tumbling into the slush. Fiji let out a low, grinding groan and collapsed, his glowing eyes flickering like a dying bulb.
"Rock guy!" Pippin shrieked.
The gunslinger snapped his fingers to open a portal, but Lancelot was already there. He slammed his armored shoulder into the gunslinger's ribs, a sound like dry wood snapping echoing through the courtyard. The gunslinger hit the ground hard, his left arm hanging limp and useless at his side.
"Stay down, vermin!" Lancelot roared. He swung the light blade in a brutal downward arc, carving a deep, smoking trench into the gunslinger's thigh.
Squelch.
The gunslinger let out a strangled cry, his face turning the color of ash. He tried to raise his gun, but his fingers wouldn't stop shaking. They were being dominated. It wasn't even close anymore. Every movement Lancelot made was a calculated execution.
The centaur loomed over them. He raised the light blade high, the energy gathering into a point of blinding white heat. He was going to end it. He was going to put the gunslinger's head on a spike.
Just as he began the downward swing, something small and white flitted past his vision.
Puff.
A snowball drifted from right to left, grazing his cheek. Lancelot's eyes flickered for a fraction of a second.
Where did that even come from?
He didn't stop his strike, but his focus was cracked. Then, something else flew through the air. It was slow. It was heavy. It was a raw, bloody piece of meat.
Splat!
The hunk of flesh hit Lancelot square in his already bruised jaw. The wet impact was enough to jerk his head to the side. The light blade hissed through the air, missing the gunslinger's neck by an inch and melting the stone floor instead.
"Now! He's open!" Pippin screamed, his heart nearly jumping out of his chest.
Thank you! Whoever you are!
The gunslinger didn't waste the breath to wonder. He jammed the barrel of his revolver upward, pressing it against the soft, exposed skin of Lancelot's neck, right where the silver armor had been pried open earlier.
BANG!
The tooth-bullet exploded. Lancelot's head snapped back, a fountain of dark blood spraying into the freezing wind as he let out a choked, gurgling cry.
Lancelot stumbled back, his heavy hooves skidding through the slush. He pressed a hand to the ragged, smoking hole in his neck, his silver breastplate slick with dark blood. The sight was a violation of the natural order. A Rank 3 Veteran of the Veridian Kingdom was being brought to his knees by a collection of discarded toys and broken things.
"Preposterous!" Lancelot roared, his voice bubbling through the fluid in his throat.
"By what divine malediction do such lowly, insignificant organisms presume to contest my sovereignty? This is an anatomical impossibility! An affront to the very architecture of power!"
He spat a glob of gore onto the snow, his eyes darting wildly.
"And who? Who dares desecrate my visage with the refuse of a slaughterhouse? Reveal yourself, coward! I shall dismantle your very essence for this transgression!"
Out of the long shadows cast by the crumbling stone pillars, a figure stepped into the flickering torchlight.
It wasn't a god.
It wasn't even a warrior of renown.
It was a Pale-Mantle Manul, his fur matted with dried blood and singed by the cold.
Lemony walked with a slow, rhythmic gait, his yellow eyes fixed on the centaur. He looked small against the backdrop of the fortress, yet the air seemed to grow heavier with every step he took.
"A Manul? A mountain cat? A creature whose sole purpose is to hide in the crevices of the earth? This is the reason of my downfall?"
The gunslinger stared, his good arm resting on his wounded thigh.
"Lemony? What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to be halfway to the gate by now."
Pippin's head popped out of the coat, his eyes wide.
"He actually came back! He really came back for us!"
Lemony didn't look at them. He stopped ten feet from the centaur, his breath coming in steady, frosty plumes.
"I'm here to finish the job. I don't care about the plan. I just want you dead."
Lancelot's face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. He ignored the hole in his neck, the pain fueling a final, desperate surge of adrenaline. He stood tall, the light blade in his hand glowing with a frantic, flickering intensity.
"You think your presence alters the equation, feline?" Lancelot hissed. He thought of his lineage, of the expectations of the Veridian court. If he failed here, if he fell to a common cat, his name would be erased from the annals of history.
I must focus. For the honor of the centaur bloodline, I cannot fail.
With a thunderous crack of stone, Lancelot charged. He was a blur of silver and light. Before Lemony could even raise a hand, the light blade pierced through his shoulder.
Squelch.
Lemony was lifted off his feet and slammed back into the snow, the energy of the blade cauterizing the wound as it went in.
I was too arrogant, Lemony thought, the world spinning as the white-hot pain flooded his nervous system. I thought the vampire strand made me invincible. I'm still just a cat.
"You're going to die!" Lancelot screamed, his foot pressing down on Lemony's chest to pin him.
The gunslinger fired a desperate shot, but Lancelot swiped the air, the light blade deflecting the tooth-bullet into the sky. Fiji tried to lunge forward, but Lancelot kicked back with a hoof, sending the stone giant crashing into a wall.
They were helpless. They could only watch as the centaur loomed over their friend.
I have to think! I have to think! Pippin panicked, his Scholar's Eye darting across the scene, but all he saw were lines of death.
Lancelot didn't strike the final blow yet. He wanted to savor this. He looked down at Lemony with utter disgust.
"Do you know how the world sees your kind, Manul? You are the jests of the mammalian kingdom. Otocolobus manul. A primitive, flat-faced relic with the shortest legs of any wild felid. In civilized society, you are treated as nothing more than a curiosity to be caged or a pelt to be worn by the lower gentry. You possess neither the grace of the leopard nor the strength of the lion. You are a biological dead end, a scavenger that hides in the rocks while greater beings rule the sun!"
He leaned in closer, the light blade humming near Lemony's throat.
"To think that a creature so structurally inferior, so socially irrelevant, could ever hope to stand before me. It is the height of—"
Suddenly, Lancelot's voice cut off. His eyes widened, the pupils shrinking to pinpricks. The light blade in his hand flickered once and then vanished.
"What..." Lancelot whispered.
His front legs buckled. Then his rear legs. The great centaur collapsed forward, his heavy body hitting the snow with a dull, wet thud. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt like lead. He stared at the ground, his vision fading into a grey haze.
Lemony sat up slowly, clutching his pierced shoulder. He looked at the fallen commander with a flat, emotionless expression.
"You talked too much," Lemony muttered.
Lancelot lay there in the snow, his massive chest barely moving. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of the wind whistling through the fortress.
The gunslinger stared at the fallen centaur, then at Lemony. He leaned back against a rock, his own breath coming in ragged hitches.
This Manul never fails to impress me, the gunslinger thought, a faint, bloody smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Pippin scrambled out of the gunslinger's coat, his eyes bright with relief.
"Lemony! You're alive! I thought for sure that light blade... I mean, look at you! You're a mess, but you're alive!"
Everyone was a mess. Fiji's stone skin was webbed with deep cracks, and the gunslinger's shoulder was a blackened ruin. The stone giant limped over, his movements heavy and grinding. He held the very last bottle of his healing fluids like it was a holy relic.
He moved from person to person, letting the gunslinger and Pippin take a small, bracing sip. Finally, he knelt beside Lemony and handed him the rest. Lemony gripped the glass tight, the warmth of the liquid seeped into his cold, bandaged palms.
"How did he even pass out?" the gunslinger asked, gesturing to the unconscious Lancelot with his good hand.
"He was in the middle of a damn speech. He looked like he had enough spite to last another hour."
Pippin adjusted his glasses, his Scholar's Eye still flickering at the edges of his vision.
"Statistically speaking, the only chances are probably a delayed neurotoxic reaction from a hidden poison... or perhaps a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by the extreme metabolic strain of his slaughterhouse ability. His heart just couldn't keep up with his ego."
"It's not that," Lemony said, his voice flat. He took a slow drink of the healing fluid, feeling the stinging heat as his shoulder began to knit back together.
"Maybe it was just blood loss..."
Pippin looked at Lancelot's neck wound.
"But he didn't lose nearly as much blood as the gunslinger did. Biologically, a creature of that mass should still be standing."
He trailed off, looking at Lemony's calm face. Whatever magic or trick had been hidden in that piece of meat Lemony threw, it was staying hidden.
The tension started to bleed out of the group. They began to talk about the next step, their voices low and exhausted.
"We need to get out of here," the gunslinger said.
"We have to get Koro, Ve and the childrens. If we can find the anchor of this domain, we can finally—"
The gunslinger's voice cut off. The air didn't just get cold; it turned stagnant. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the courtyard.
"Hor... Hor..."
The sound was a wet, rhythmic wheeze, coming from directly behind Lemony.
Lemony froze. He didn't turn around immediately, but he could feel a presence towering over him. It was a wolf, taller than any of the scavengers they had fought.
The creature wore the same silver-trimmed military attire as Lancelot, but with a heavy, fur-lined coat draped over its shoulders.
Its face was the worst part. It had no eyes. Instead, a thick, stained blindfold was tied tightly around its head, the fabric matted with old fur.
The wolf leaned down, its snout inches from Lemony's ear. Its breath smelled like ancient dust and iron.
"Do you know a Skoll Wolf here, my dearest Manul?" the creature whispered.