Legacies of Blood

Royce’s transformation took less than a few seconds, but for Elaina, it seemed to play out in slow motion. Her skin became bone white as black leather and metal wrapped themselves around her. A rack of unusual black horns sprouted from her face between her eyes, covering them like an eyeless mask before spreading away from her skull to either side. Her hair became a crimson red flame as black, oily tears ran down her face from under the horned mask. When she smiled, her mouth was full of sharp teeth with bloody gums.

“Recognize this?” the witch said, motioning to herself as she stepped forward. Elaina noticed she’d grown a foot or so in height, adding to the intimidating presence the blades and chains hanging from her already created. Her white breasts were spattered in blood from an unseen source, and between her legs was a ghastly curved blade resembling a crude, vicious phallus. “You should.”

Elaina took an uncertain step backward, holding her weapon in front of her defensively. She’d never seen such a horrid transformation from the woman before, but the witch was correct about it seeming familiar. The swordmage shook her head more frantically than she intended.

“No?” The witch said, clucking her tongue a few times as her voice distorted. It sounded like something else was speaking in unison with her. “You might be able to lie to yourself, but not to me, sweet one. I’ve known you for quite some time.”

Elaina’s hand shook slightly as fear and dread reached down into her soul. “D-don’t make me hurt you, Royce.”

“Hurt me?” Royce exclaimed loudly. “You cannot hurt me, Elaina. I am Pain.”

“W-what?” Elaina stammered reflexively, but she understood fully what Royce meant. She had synced with a spirit of pain itself. Her mind reached back to the effects of the potion and the spirits it had allowed her to see. There were some she couldn’t identify readily, some she didn’t recognize or her gaze simply passed over.

Royce’s grin spread impossibly wide, becoming even more unwholesome. “Don’t pretend you don’t know me. We have an intimate relationship, you and I. Try as you might to ignore my existence; I’m always with you.”

“No!” Elaina yelled, the grip on her weapon tightening. “Don’t come any closer, I swear!”

“Go on,” Royce sneered. “Try it. See what happens.”

Elaina’s rage returned, erupting to the surface from a place deep within that she’d been pushing it until the right moment. As she rushed forth with the Radiant Blade poised to strike, the creature that was Royce hunched over and spread her arms to either side, her fingers forming into long black claws. “Come to mommy!”

The swordmage uttered a wordless battle cry as she brought her blade into a downward stroke. Royce deflected the strike with the razor-sharp blades that had once been her fingers, countering with those of her other hand. Elaina used the momentum of the deflection to spin into a parry of Royce’s other hand, then snapped it upward to intercept yet another strike. As nonviable as it may have been under normal circumstances for her to face an opponent with multiple weapons, the magic in her weapon reduced the weight of her sword significantly enough that she was more than able to keep up.

Elaina advanced, putting her weight into her parries and strikes to drive Royce deeper into the defensive. Every time their blades met, they sparked and spat with opposing magical energy. The swordmage slid the glowing blade between the fingers, twisted it, and shot up toward Royce’s face. The witch leaned away, narrowly avoiding the strike with a wicked grin on her face. Taking advantage of the moment of imbalance, Elaina kicked Royce’s leg out from under her, sending her tumbling backward to the rotting floor of the ruined estate.

As Royce hit the floor, Elaina followed up with a swift, downward stab meant to be a decisive blow. Royce’s supernatural speed allowed her to narrowly avoid the strike, flip backward onto her feet, and lash out with a series of spiked chains to create more distance between the two.

“You’re better than I remember,” Royce laughed sadistically.

Spinning the blade about in front of her to sweep the chains aside, Elaina stepped forward in a whirling advance, passing the spinning blade behind her back in the process. Moving the light swiftly in circles and intermittently obscuring it created a strobing effect that most opponents found disorienting. Those who tried to follow it, wary of being struck by it, often missed her footwork and other movements that were lost in the dark.

Elaina brought the blade back into view in a wide downward arc, catching Royce by surprise as the blade bit deep into her shoulder. “You just never took me seriously as anything other than your whore!”

Royce reached up to the blade in her flesh, only for the swordmage to rip it away. Elaina immediately noticed that any real cry of pain was conspicuously absent and that the wound wasn’t as severe as it should have been.

The witch lashed out with both sets of claws at once, carving deep grooves across the chest of Elaina’s brigandine but failing to penetrate any further. Shifting her weight, Elaina prepared to press the attack but was taken off-guard by a sudden headbutt with the horned mask. Her vision filled with flashes and spots of color as she stumbled away from Royce, the base of her skull beginning to tingle wildly.

Rather than parry the incoming attack, Elaina glanced to her right and vanished into a faestep, appearing a few feet out of Royce’s reach---or so she thought. The witch erupted from a realmshift a second later, completely negating the space and time that Elaina had believed to have bought for herself. With a heavy swing, Royce sent the back of her hand into Elaina’s chest with enough force to lift her off the ground and put her through a crumbling pillar of the ruins.

Elaina coughed as she struggled to breathe and remain on her feet even as Royce pressed forward. The swordmage brought her off-hand up to brandish her bracer, wordlessly unleashing the Repulsor spell to repel the terrifying creature the witch had become. Royce clashed with the magic head-on and was knocked backward but vanished immediately into a realmshift, only to rake her claws down Elaina’s back. White-hot lines of pain extended from the back of her skull down her back as the claws penetrated the brigandine and popped pieces of it free like torn stitches.

“EUAGHHH!” Elaina screamed, stumbling forward without a clear direction. The tingle at the base of her skull was nearly drowned out by the pain, but she was able to pick it out in time to turn sloppily to one side and knock a following strike of the claws to one side.

A chain swept her legs out from her before she was even finished defending against the previous attack, putting her flat on her back for a brief moment until Royce seized her by the ankle. The witch swung Elaina around by the leg with alarming ease, pitching her through the moldering remnants of an interior wall.

Hitting the ground and sliding for several feet, Elaina attempted to take stock of her injuries, but the pain was so all-encompassing that it was impossible to narrow it down to the worst parts.

“There it is,” Royce cooed as she stepped calmly through the opening she’d made with Elaina’s body. “That old familiar pain. Do you think you can keep ignoring it?”

Elaina instinctively moved into a faestep to her left as Royce erupted from her realmshift for what could have been a killing blow. Instead, the swordmage brought her across the witch’s body under her arm, tearing it out through her back. She might as well have been chopping vegetables for all the good it did her. Royce was unwavering despite the wound. Turning to face her, she loosed a hex of crimson flame upon her.

“*Leim!*” Elaina gasped, sending a pulse of magic through her legs to increase her jumping distance, narrowing escaping the flames with little more than singed hair and eyebrows. Appearing behind Royce through a Faestep the moment she landed, Elaina drove her blade deep into the creature’s back, impaling her down to the hilt.

“You always did like sticking it in me, didn’t you?” Royce quipped, glancing over her shoulder at Elaina with a vicious grin splitting her face. The witch wrapped one hand around the glowing blade protruding from her torso while driving the bladed elbow of her other arm back into Elaina’s ribs.

“Urk!” Elaina whimpered, feeling the blade slide between the metal plates of her armor as easily as it did her ribs thereafter.

Blood trickled from between Royce’s teeth as she grinned. “But you weren’t so bad to stick it in either.”

Ripping the blade out of the witch as she stumbled back, Elaina dropped to one knee. Royce turned to face her calmly, looking down at the wounds she had sustained to assess the damage. “Better than I thought you would do. But ultimately pointless.”

Elaina took a ragged breath, searching her mind for a spell or a stance that might allow her to turn the tide of the battle. She supposed her best bet was to try and decapitate the vishanti. Even creatures with the ability to ignore other wounds and regenerate struggled with having no head---or body, depending on how one looked at it. Perhaps if she could time the strike to coincide with one of Royce’s, she might be able to make a clean cut.

“Once I’m finished with you, I’m going to take that door back with me,” Royce laughed, her wounds slowly knitting shut as if by an unseen needle and thread. “Then I’ll have all the time and assistance I need to reverse it---reopen it so I can reclaim what’s mine.”

“F-fuck,” Elaina muttered. It sounded like a bluff, like something that was meant to upset her enough into a reckless attack, but there was a chance that the witch wasn’t full of it. There was a chance that she and whoever else she was working with in Tenebre Dontae for this terrible thing would be stepping into Lenuta’s basement very soon.

“I guess that decides it,” Elaina muttered, glancing back toward the door that leaned awkwardly to the side amid the ruins. Before Royce could parse her meaning, Elaina pushed herself to her feet and into another Faestep. Her muscles nearly seized with the strain she was putting them through. So many faesteps so close together turned out to be incredibly taxing on her stamina. She brought her weapon back in both hands to strike.

“NO!” Royce snarled, impulsively hurling a potent hex of searing flame toward Elaina, meant to drop her in a single shot. The redhead shifted to one side, allowing the hex to strike the door instead, where it bore a sizzling blackened hole clean through it. In truth, Elaina hadn’t been sure if she would have been able to destroy the door with just her weapon and waning strength, but Royce had shown herself to have much more power available to her. It was just like she said---she was more powerful here.

Unfortunately for Elaina, destroyed magic items didn’t hold together very well or remain stable for long. The door swelled and cracked before erupting into the same crimson flame that Royce had struck it with a moment before. Elaina stumbled away as best as she could manage, even as the immolated door’s heat singed more of her hair and scorched her skin.

Elaina only made it a few steps before stumbling and falling forward. Now that she could no longer hold her sword, it clattered to the ground next to her, its brilliant blue-white light fading as it did. The burning door became the only light from which to see by as she struggled to crawl away.

“You are quite possibly the most contrary little cunt I have ever known,” Royce growled as she seized a handful of Elaina’s hair and lifted her off the ground.

Struggling weakly against Royce’s grip, Elaina knew she’d forfeited her chance to take the witch out when she chose to protect Lenuta. “It’s over, Royce,” Elaina gurgled. “You’ve lost. There’s nothing left for you here.”

“Not entirely true,” Royce corrected, holding up one clawed finger. “I still have you, don’t I?”

Royce ran the claw down the side of Elaina’s face at an agonizingly slow rate, carving a line of hot blood out of her flesh. “And I’m not going to rush it. I want to take things nice and slow with you one last time.”

Elaina thrashed around as best as she could, earning a swift strike with a closed fist to the wound in her side for her efforts. Then, Royce began peeling the armor from her, casting it into the darkness beyond the crimson firelight. Piece by piece, Elaina’s body was exposed, battered, and bloody from the battle between the two.

“Don’t...” Elaina pleaded weakly before Royce cut fresh, shallow lines in her pale flesh.

“Your pain is so exquisite. So potent,” the witch remarked, throwing Elaina down onto the rotting floor. “But what was that you said before about being my whore?”

Elaina’s brows furrowed for a moment before Royce spread her legs, exposing her sex to the terrifying creature. As she brought the blade that served as her de facto cock to bear, Elaina realized what the witch had in mind for her and dumped all of her remaining strength and energy into wildly kicking at her with both legs. “NO! Royce, don’t!”

Royce’s grin stretched almost to her ears as she slapped the redhead’s legs aside with ease, spreading her open as she wrapped one hand around her throat. Elaina’s hips swiveled and swung from one side to the other to escape the blade lining up to impale her. Royce drove her fist into the swordmage’s face and ribs several times to subdue her, keeping her other hand wrapped firmly around her throat.

“No!” Elaina begged, tears streaming from her eyes. “Don’t do this to me! Please, Royce! Please!”

Royce was a breath away from carving Elaina’s cunt like a turkey when she stopped. The grin on her face gradually faded as the grip around the woman’s neck weakened. Through the hot tears, Elaina could see the bands around Royce’s arms and legs flickering slightly as the witch withdrew. Relieved to have escaped such a vile and grisly end, all Elaina could do was lay there and weep.

The sound of a whistle from the darkness beyond the firelight cut through the moment of tension, followed immediately after by a feminine shout. “Hold! Remain where you are and put your hands up!”

As Royce shrank down to her normal size and appearance, she stared down at Elaina with revulsion. But there was something more there that Elaina could see, something akin to confusion. It wasn’t clear if the revulsion was entirely for the redhead. Some seemed to be reserved for herself.

“I never want to see you again,” Royce muttered to her quietly as the sound of multiple pairs of boots approached at a rapid pace. “Understand? If I ever see you again, I won’t be so merciful.”

Royce vanished a moment before a trio of uniformed guards burst into the light, rapiers at the ready for whatever they might have found. The fire from the door was spreading to whatever flammable portion of the ruins it could reach, posing a possible risk to the surrounding area if it got much more out of control.

“Goddess,” one of the guards gasped as her eyes fell upon Elaina. Each wore light armor adorned with dark tabards, making it difficult to see them in the dark. “What happened here?”

“H-help,” Elaina choked, overwhelmed not just by the physical pain but by the shame of her defeat and being found naked in such a state. “Please.”

“Is it a man or a woman?” A second female guard muttered, confused.

The first guard pulled her cloak off and set it across Elaina’s body, wrapping her in the dark fabric before lifting her gingerly off the ground. “I don’t know. Both, maybe.”

“A mutant?” the third guard asked, motioning for the other two to step back. Once they had, she turned and held one hand out, closing it as a giant orb of water engulfed the burning door. “*Sferadiapa!”*

The hex produced enough water to instantly quench the blaze, despite its magical nature.

“Probably. Maybe she’s from Al-Tahim?” the second guard suggested.

The third guard looked over at her skeptically. “With fair skin and red hair? Doubtful.”

“We need to get her to a healer,” the first guard interjected, climbing a small hill with Elaina in her arms as she returned to the horses the patrol had left behind. “Her wounds are serious.”

“Alright, forget your horse, then,” the second guard suggested. “I’ll bring him back to town once we’re finished here. You shift on ahead to town and see if you can’t drag a priestess out of bed to help her out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the first guard acknowledged as she abandoned her destination. Holding Elaina a little tighter in her arms, she whispered for her to hold on and vanished into a realmshift, a feeling that had become familiar to her by that point.

Elaina watched as the stars overhead changed and the cool night air filled with the quiet sounds of nightlife from a tavern nearby. Someone gasped as they appeared and the guard carrying her brought her up a set of stone stairs toward a church or temple that Elaina didn’t recognize. Stained glass illuminated by candlelight from within cast a strangely comforting and warm glow over them as they approached.

“Goddess above!” another woman from out of view exclaimed as they came through a large set of heavy oak doors. “What happened?”

“I think she was attacked,” the guard answered as Elaina’s head swam and her vision blurred. “She’s losing a lot of blood. Is the priestess here?”

“It... w-was a witch,” the battered redhead muttered absently. “Witch.”

“I’ll wake her immediately,” the other voice replied urgently. As the sound of her footsteps faded into the echo of a sizeable candlelit room, Elaina felt herself slipping away into a sorrowful darkness she thought she’d left behind a long time ago.