Finally, Krahe saw her window of opportunity. She lit a cigarette, rolled her shoulders, and began leisurely walking towards the fray, knowing full well that any stray strike, any near-invisible sword-wave could kill her on the spot. She had means to protect herself, but these two were fighting at a speed nearly beyond her ability to comprehend even in the most rudimentary way. Still, she moved forward. The operation of Skullhead’s favored attack became clearer as she observed them; they were somewhat akin to backwards-spinning saws, tearing up the ground as they traveled, requiring contact with a surface perhaps as leverage or as part of their mode of operation. As for Favonia… Krahe really couldn’t make out a great deal. The woman was just a screaming, roiling ball of silver metal and red-glowing hair, of scarlet spikes and blades that seemed to come out of nowhere and vanish into nowhere just as quickly. She punched, and the ground exploded ten meters away. Krahe was frankly impressed that Skullhead was keeping up with Favonia as well as he was, in no small part because things just seemed to not want to hit him.
Skullhead looked at her. Not quite in the eyes, but he looked at her, and Krahe immediately knew he would try to take her out of the equation. He did, and the cutting distortion-wave passed through empty space, scattering the smoking, sparking remnants of Krahe blasting herself sideways to avoid it before the motion of Skullhead’s swing had even taken place. Even then, the wave only missed her arm by centimeters, and just the concrete rubble it tore out of the ground hit her leg with enough force it would’ve broken something if she hadn’t anticipated this and hardened it in advance. The only reason she hadn’t dived was the danger consideration — a broken bone was something she could deal with, somehow, but the closer to the zone of annihilation she came, the more likely she would need an absolute defense such as a dive or the ring.
And, indeed, she was right. Another wave came her way, with only an astro-skim saving her hide. Skullhead could doubtlessly throw such attacks her way faster than she could skim, so it was a game of chicken that the baneworm didn’t know he was playing, one that he would lose the moment she managed to lock eyes with him.
Three swings and half her cigarette later, that momentous occasion came. By this point Favonia had manipulated the battle such that Skullhead would see Krahe, but so that Favonia’s frankly ridiculous zone of control would be interposed between him and Krahe. And, over the banisher’s shoulder, she saw him. It only took dragging down the rest of her cigarette, tossing it aside, and finally diving to properly grab his attention. To him, it certainly brought across the message of “time’s up.”
Fanged maws split open across the baneworm’s stolen form and arms of black salt emerged from within to take hold of him, clawing and grasping and encasing him. Just the initiation of the effect sufficed to distract him, and Favonia instantly took advantage, binding him with her hair, its strands searing his skin and digging into the hollow caverns of his eyes, physically restraining the very eyeballs so that he would not be able to look away.
The salt took him. In the mere moments for which the shell held him Favonia carried out a series of signs with her left hand. Krahe couldn’t see them — she could only see the blurred motion and hear the seven thunderclaps, and with each gesture she felt the surging tide of arcane force pouring out of the silver arm’s jewel, congealing and intertwining into a pattern at once so complex and with such tension that it distorted the air. There was no vocal incantation to accompany it. Favonia simply opened her mouth, and an inaudible shockwave forced the meaning directly into Krahe’s head, filling her ears with a monumental noise as the surroundings shook and the ground cracked under the banisher’s heels.
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FINAL COUPLER CHARGE
SECOND SPOKE OF THE BREAKING WHEEL
CRUCIFIXION UPON THE PYRE TREE
No acrobatics, no flaming sword, no such honor of direct execution came to Skullhead, only a gathering of burning-red hair at his feet, outlining the shape of a seven-spoked wheel. His flesh freed itself from Krahe’s black salt at the last moment, just before a spiraling spire of scarlet, the wheel’s axle, skewered him from below. The light of its travel shone through from within his flesh, until it blossomed into a crown of branches out of his mouth, his nostrils and eye sockets. It spread his legs apart and forced his arms into the posture of crucifixion in the same manner, forming an X shape, and two additional branches erupted from his sides, completing the shape of seven spokes. Favonia snapped her fingers. The tree was consumed by flames with a core of silver and edge of the same incomprehensible RED that Krahe had seen upon Favonia when astro-diving.
Favonia looked dissatisfied. She was watching for something, something that didn’t appear, not even as Skullhead was rendered to nothing, leaving behind only a silhouette of the hair that had pierced and shredded his body from within. Inside the figure’s head, within the outline of Skullhead’s true, lamprey-like body, Krahe spotted a small purplish gem. With the fire having gone out, strangely, the pyre-tree didn’t seem so macabre. All in all, it possessed an unsettling sort of beauty and purity, exuding a similar sense of the sublime to the statues of Zavesh pulling his ribcage open. Perhaps Favonia’s strange fire had purified him in some spiritual way — Krahe didn’t really know.
A small gesture was all it took for the gem to float out of the tangle, disturbing not a strand along the way, and into Favonia’s waiting hand. She grimaced, and swallowed it. A moment passed, and she sighed. “He had truly come to the conclusion that his behavior was in some way acceptable. Shame. I would’ve liked it better had he been a liar. Release.”
With a flash of silver-red, Favonia’s armor burned off of her. The banisher exhaled, tension visibly releasing from her massive frame. Black veins spidered over her entire body, threatening to burst open, and her flesh almost seemed charred, as if ravaged by extreme omniphage sickness and massive amounts of Isotope. However, with each passing second and each breath that Favonia took, the damage retreated, a haze of heat and reddish steam rising from her skin. She looked to Krahe, smiling. “Were it not for that opening, it may have taken me another two, maybe three minutes to bring him down. He might’ve even managed to escape if he got lucky. I ought to properly report it and have them pay you out later, but… Here, your share.”
Just like that, Favonia pulled a long string of densely-packed CRC rings from the mass of her hair and hefted it onto Krahe’s shoulder, walking past as if this thrumming mass of arcane metal was just pocket change.
“Take your time to store the cash, I need a few minutes to call for clean-up. It’s just money, don’t overthink it.”
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