136. Pretjordian Standoff

Two Kronvakt members faced each other down, locked as they were inside a TERRAFORMED cage. Eddur was within a stone's throw of Serac's REVOLVER, but so was she of his MIRRORBLADE.

Not only that, but the barreleye man now bent with an odd posture, angling his encased eyes to capture Serac within his SCRYGLASS. For the latter, it made an already tense situation deeply uncomfortable. She now had emotional reasons, on top of practical ones, to 'resolve' this encounter as soon as possible.

"You expect me to surrender, do you, Rakshasa?" Eddur spoke in that characteristic garbled murmur, ostensibly calm. "Lay down my arms and stay put inside your cage, while you carry on with your seditious activities?"

"Would you consider it?" Serac played along, straining to keep her voice steady against the pounding of her heart (and the ticking of her [Satiety] gauge). "I promise it won't be for too long. Let me and Zacko do our thing, then we'll be out of your hair for good."

"What's to stop me from turning my BLADE onto myself?" Eddur's morbid question was, in fact, perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. "The Interstitium is one escape route you have no way of blocking."

"Nothing," Serac admitted honestly. "If you wanted to Dust yourself right now, I've no realistic way to stop you. I could still try to catch you at the Hubstation, but it'll be difficult, considering our fight would be a lot more public there. Which is also why I don't think you'll do it."

Silence. A slight twitch of the hand—and an accompanying flicker of green.

"I mean, think about it." Serac followed her nose, even as her pulse quickened into a near-constant hum. "Team Leader Lokksen, bested by an outrealmer barely a week into her Kronvakt career? A Rakshasa, no less, one you should've been able to outswim, let alone outmaneuver. Sure, you can still slip away by taking the coward's way out. Duty first, right? But… what will people think? Will your fellow Kronvakt ever look at you the same way again? What about the Kronheer gossiping behind your back?"

In the week she'd spent scouting her fellow Kronvakt members for their powers—and perhaps unbeknownst even to herself—Serac had also built up mental 'dossiers' on their personalities. She hadn't planned on it, but she put that knowledge to use now, as she very deliberately pushed Eddur's buttons.

Evidently, something of Zacko's sly, silver-tongued ways had rubbed off on her. Unlike the Manusya, Serac couldn't quite bring herself to threaten underlings with violence, but she had zero qualms about manipulating her equals—on this occasion, by using Eddur's barely concealed ego against him.

Eddur Lokksen. He of the weird vibes and even weirder powers. The man could come across as soft-spoken and withdrawn, but Serac knew better.

She'd paid attention at all those boring morning meetings, enough to have noticed how Eddur relished unnerving the other souls around him. Much of it hinged on a reputation—an aura that must've taken him years to cultivate. What would happen to that aura if word got out that he'd let a Narakite upstart drive him to the most desperate and humiliating last resort—giving up upwards of 16,000 क while he was at it?

"Has no one taught you to be careful what you wish for?" came Eddur's reply, noticeably better enunciated than his last. "Are you so certain that you wish to cross blades with me? Because I will oblige you, make no mistake… and know that I have no mercy for traitors."

Grandstanding. Stalling. Serac had been remarkably patient up to now, but this was a development she couldn't allow—couldn't afford. Eddur still didn't know about her dwindling [Satiety] gauge. All the more reason for Serac to 'twist the knife' and goad her opponent into action.

"Oh, I'm certain, alright," she said with a performative sneer. "You have no idea how badly I've wanted to break that… that glass window you have for a head. I wanna see what those squiggly bits look like splattered on the floor!"

What an awful (and oddly anachronistic?) thing to say! Serac's improvised heel turn instantly made her hate herself, but it'd also done the job. The barreleye man bent even lower as he let out a short, garbled growl—almost like a final warning. Except he didn't give anyone the chance to respond to said warning.

[SCRYGLASS Spell: HEADLAMP]

A flash of sickly green, emitted directly from Eddur's eyes. It flooded the whole cage with incandescent light, momentarily stunning and blinding Serac. This wasn't part of the scouting report!

Eyes stinging and useless, Serac was forced to fall back on her battle-tested instincts. Fire blindly from the hip, if only to make her opponent think twice. PULVERIZER TERRAFORMER up to protect her face. Puff out her [Abyssal] chestpiece, in the hopes it might catch a BLADE and absorb the damage.

None of it worked; none of it mattered. Serac saw why as she finally managed to blink away her tears of pain—and immediately wished she hadn't.

For Eddur Lokksen was already mid-teleport, this time having cut a window onto his own head—the 'mirror' nearest his eyes. The resulting visual was something straight out of an eldritch nightmare: a barreleye Yaksha literally elbow-deep in his own transparent skull.

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[Auxiliary Technique: PLUNGE POINT]

Another unscouted surprise! This was why you should never underestimate a Wayfarer!

[Plunge Point] clearly differed from [Cutting Edge], in that Eddur had sent only his knife-wielding hand into the portal. Did that mean the 'exit' could also be a smaller window? But what else inside this TERRAFORMED cage could provide a reflective—

Serac came to a realization, just in time to react. Then everything happened at once—some of it merely bizarre, the rest downright unimaginable.

First, Serac reholstered REVOLVER, having sensed that she needed both hands free for what she was about to attempt. At the same time, Eddur's hand 'shot out' from Serac's face—or more specifically, from the tears that rolled down her cheek.

The green point of MIRRORBLADE was the first thing to take shape, but this was quickly followed by the whole forearm (everything below the elbow!). And as Eddur 'swung' from the other side of the cage, his floating knife mirrored his movement. Blinding quick, it cut across Serac's throat and all the squiggly bits contained therein.

[726!]

[Wayfarer Status Effect: BLEED]

Big, big damage! [Plunge Point] either boasted a ridiculously high Attack Value, or perhaps had been boosted by an 'inherent' critical multiplier. But Serac had nevertheless survived the attack, and more importantly, she'd anticipated it, which meant she could turn it on its head.

Eddur's knife hand kept its momentum as it followed through and swung away from its target's throat. But before it could make its getaway, back into the same teardrop window it'd burst out of, Serac grabbed it with both hands!

The pain was bad. The bleeding worse. And the sheer horror of what had happened—was still happening—to her body was the absolute worst. But she hadn't come this far by feeling sorry for herself. [Tribulation] might've been written over by a different [Boon], but Serac was still the same hell-forged Rakshasa everywhere she went.

She held on. Ignoring the pain, the blood, the horror. She held on with every drop of strength she could squeeze out of her [Substance 13] body—more than enough to leave claw marks on Eddur's scaled wrist.

"W—what?"

First, a garbled murmur of surprise, masked by a healthy dose of contempt. But the contempt soon left Eddur's voice as he moved onto grunting with effort. And before long, he could produce nothing but a terrified whine.

"What is this? Get… get off me! I can't see!"

He couldn't see, but he could certainly read the predicament he was in. The man lurched in place, one elbow still stuck firmly 'inside' his own skull. For Serac, the sight was no less nightmarish just because she had become responsible for it. But nightmare or no, it was time for her to double down.

Serac dropped to the ground and lay on her back. The change in position gave her better stability for arm wrestling, but that wasn't why she adopted it. As soon as she'd established her 'anchor', she activated TERRAFORMER once more. This time, her mental image was that of a house/tortoise burrowing itself into an underground bunker.

The cage broke apart and sent its component parts slithering onto Serac's body, where they reconfigured themselves into a form-fitting 'coffin', one that was firmly rooted to the ground. It came complete with extra loops and knots around her head and neck, thereby immobilizing both her and Eddur's arms. Now, the two Wayfarers were well and truly blended together—connected by mirrors and bound by nature.

"No… please, Rakshasa. This is… this is so humiliating!"

Yeah, well, if I can take it, then you have nothing to complain about! Serac would've shouted, had her vocal cords not been shredded to bits.

But Serac knew she wasn't 'out of the woods' (at least figuratively speaking!). The power she currently held over Eddur Lokksen was entirely dependent on a rapidly diminishing resource. Not only that, but she was still [Bleeding], with not much HP left as buffer.

[6!], [6!], [6!], …

She forced herself to stay calm—and found it surprisingly easy to do so. Because, at this point, there was nothing else she could do. Besides, she wasn't in this alone. Chasing down Eddur and holding him in place had been a solo effort, but that didn't mean she couldn't rely on her friends to swoop in and finish the job.

The seconds ticked away, and Serac's [Satiety] gauge with them. It took almost no time for the creamy orange bar to shrink to its last sliver.

Not quite ready for Frenzy just yet, Serac pulled an emergency lever. She 'switched' her channeling resource, from [Satiety] over to MP. But her max was 104, and [Metabolic Shift] ate through Mana at a clip of 10 points per second, which bought her only ten seconds of extra time.

Ten. Nine. She noticed that Eddur's knife hand had stopped struggling. Had he accepted his fate—or was he plotting some other means of escape?

Eight. Seven. So little time left. If her friends didn't come soon, she too would have to give up the fight.

Six. Five. Or, could she maaaybe squeeze out a few more seconds from her [Satiety]? Dare she risk it?

Four. Three. "W—what? What are you—?" Commotion? Signs of life! A thwack here, a grunt there, and a thud that shook the ground beneath Serac's TERRAFORMED coffin.

"Serac!" Petter Svensen's terrified yelp, muffled by the vines and branches all around Serac. She vaguely noted that this was the first time the mackerel man had called her name, sans honorific. But more importantly: "We've got him! You can let go now!"

About time! Serac shut off her channeling, and the effects of [Metabolic Shift] reversed themselves in short order. First, the vines and branches slunk away from her body to rejoin mother nature. Next, a puff of Zealous-green smoke, followed by PULVERIZER reclaiming its craggy rocks.

Serac loosened her death-grip, then let her numb, trembling arms slide off to her sides. A blur of green across her vision, then she felt Eddur's limp hand flop onto her neck. Eugh. Well, she was certainly glad to be spared the sight of herself!

Her friends, however, weren't so lucky. Both of Zacko's eyebrows were twisted in a mixture of disgust and concern, even as he pinned Eddur to the ground. And poor Petter had been crying again. Shining tears streaked his pale, stricken face.

"Serac, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. It should never have… I should never have become…"

Serac wanted to shake her head, and nearly fainted just from the thought of it.

"Chef," she managed in a grating whisper, straining what little remained of her vocal cords, "do you have an [Ulvknall Liver] on you by any chance?"

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