[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 4 - Villain

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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!

We're back with more Tabula Smaragdina today, for the last time (for now)!

This is the FINAL CHAPTER of the Reading Sample series for TS.

Today's chapter is a little over 16k Words long, so about four times as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter! MASSIVE reading, yay!

Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (#other-novels -> Thread: "Put feedback for TAS in here")

I'm particularly looking for feedback on whether you are interested in a continuation based off of this initial Reading Sample, and specifically what parts got you really interested (if at all).

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To hopefully pre-empt some questions that might come up:

No, this will not replace TAS.

No, this will not replace ND.

No, it will not be a third novel alongside the other two anytime soon, as I'm maxed-out on energy/time capacity for writing with those.

Yes, it is something I'm considering as a third novel for the future, hence the Reading Sample.

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Now, with all that out of the way, I once again ask that you go into this with an open mind and just take it for what it is. And remember to provide targeted feedback on the things you like/dislike!

Enjoy!

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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/

I hope you will enjoy it!

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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the GoogleDoc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-9yfZJS1ffFKC__nU86MEy0YCzvilOy-rNZYZv8FFUI/edit?usp=sharing

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Chapter 4 - Villain

PoV: Seff “Ironbound” Montagne

One more Grunt was bisected by his blade-hand, neon-violet blood spilling onto the asphalt below, as Seff looked up to scan their surroundings again.

There was one Grunt left on him, while Telly and Rob were still doing their best to thin the herd and keep things contained at the Incursion’s portal—

‘Fuck.’

His eyes widened as he realized he had badly underestimated how fast the Grunts were getting through Telly and Rob’s efforts. 

Three full Grunt groups, about the same size as the one he was just finishing to deal with, had already pushed past the pile of bodies at the portal’s base and were charging straight toward all four of them.

And that was the worst part.

They weren’t just heading for him or the Vigilante. 

They were splitting up, angling toward Rob and Telly in the back.

“We’ve got incoming,” Rob warned through the telepathic link at the same time, and Seff grimaced. If Rob was calling it out like that, it was serious.

The sharp clatter of teeth scraping against his metal body snapped his focus back to the last two Grunts on him. With a quick swipe of his blade-hand, he cut the first one in half as it uselessly tried to bite him. The last Grunt lunged as well, but Seff sliced it cleanly across, the bulbous body offering no more resistance than paper.

His eyes snapped back up, searching for a way to fix the situation.

‘If I make enough noise, maybe I can pull them back… Grunts have a pack mentality, so I don’t need all of them to hear me—just enough… But I don’t know if I can be loud enough with all this chaos to—’

Before he could finish the thought, his gaze locked onto the Vigilante woman.

She stood several meters ahead of him, her monstrous frame spreading out as she straightened to her full, towering height, making herself as large as possible—which was really, really damn large—and then she suddenly screamed.

Seff flinched hard at the sound. 

The deep, baritone roar, the sheer volume of it, the way it slammed into the concrete and rockcrete walls of the high-rises around them—it made his entire body vibrate in ways he never wanted to feel again.

For a moment, he was stunned by it, just like the Grunts were. 

Especially because it just didn’t seem to stop. A scream that powerful should have burned itself out almost instantly, but the Vigilante just… kept going.

For several long seconds that felt like an eternity.

“Wow,” Telly’s strained voice echoed in Seff’s head, immediately followed by Rob’s. “Fucking hell… That’s one way to do it, I guess.”

And doing it really was the right way to put it. 

Seff watched with a mix of awe and dread as every single Grunt, as one, turned and charged straight at the massive Brawler-Morph.

‘What the fuck are you doing, you stupid woman?!’ he thought, instinctively de-morphing most of his body so he could move, breaking into a sprint toward her. ‘You don’t have the defenses to tank twenty Grunts like that—you’re going to get yourself killed…!’

Brawler-Morphs like her generally fell into three clear categories: Power, Durability, or Speed.

And she was undeniably part of the first. 

There wasn’t much in the way of extra defense to her skin, beyond what was needed to keep her massively boosted strength from tearing herself apart. She’d already been injured once—he’d heard her yelp when a Grunt had bitten into her leg—so he had no illusions about her being able to handle every Grunt at once without consequences.

Still, there was no denying it: Bringing Nica the Vigilante into this Incursion had been the best decision he’d made all month. Her raw strength and her ability to slot practically effortlessly into the team on the fly had already proven to be a huge asset.

That much was clear, even if he had completely misread her background.

The moment she’d hit them with that full legal spiel about the Powered Emergency Law, all three of them had been completely stunned. 

Up until then, she’d only answered in short sentences or single words, and they’d all assumed she was gruff, maybe not all that sharp—only to walk straight into her trap when she used the law to its fullest, taking advantage of Seff’s inability of juggling too many concerns at once and forgetting to lock down the exact terms of the alliance.

Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme. 

They weren’t here for money or spoils—they were here to protect civilians. 

Still, it had been a sharp wake-up call.

“Villains can only be trusted to act in their own best interest,” had been Rob’s immediate take. He’d never trusted Nica from the start and had felt vindicated—and angry—when the legalese came out. 

Seff couldn’t really blame him. 

Having all of that thrown in his face, when they had been mere moments away from the Incursion breaking, had stung.

But he couldn’t blame Nica either.

As a Villain, she had to protect herself from Heroes just as much as Heroes had to protect themselves from Villains. Outnumbered three to one, it made perfect sense for her to be crystal clear about the rules and the fact that the law was on her side.

And yet, that whole line of thinking of Rob’s was being flipped on its head right now, as Seff watched the Vigilante all but commit suicide-by-Vyre just to make sure Rob and Telly stayed safe.

‘What is her fucking deal?!’ he screamed internally, legs pumping as fast as they could carry him toward the towering woman and the incoming horde of Grunts.

Seff could only watch as the Vigilante swept both of her arms forward in a wide, brutal arc. 

Her reach was obscene. 

A dozen Grunts were clipped at once, bodies snapping sideways as if they’d been hit by a speeding truck. Some were flung clean across the street, others smashed straight into the pavement with wet, crunching impacts that left neon-violet gore splattered everywhere.

“Ouch, fuck!” She suddenly cursed.

Seff saw it at the same time he heard it—a sharp spray of red cutting through the violet as one of the Grunts managed to angle its teeth just right, ripping into her incoming hand before it was hurled away and shattered against the concrete.

She didn’t stop.

She twisted, staggering back as she tried to evade the rest, then lashed out with a massive kick. Two Grunts were bisected mid-air, their bodies folding apart before they even hit the ground, while a third was launched screaming down the street behind the portal. 

She took another huge step back as she did—towards him.

But she was still too slow to move back and Seff had been too slow to move towards her.

The remaining Grunts were on her in an instant, with two succeeding to match her pace and actually hitting her. One latched onto her leg, another tore into her left side near the hip, claws and teeth ripping despite its failed attempt to jump higher. 

She screamed in evident agony as blood poured from the wounds.

Then she slammed both of them into the ground.

The pavement cracked as their bodies were turned to mush.

Seff finally reached her.

He let the iron flood back through his body, weight surging and the ground underneath him cracked, as he sank slightly into the asphalt, anchoring himself in place. 

His arms morphed into blades and he carved through two Grunts that had been mid-lunge for Nica, splitting them cleanly apart.

The last one—already airborne, aimed straight for her chest—abruptly froze mid-jump.

An invisible force crushed it downward, smashing it into the street with a brutal, bone-shattering impact.

“Great work, Telly!” Seff sent instantly over the link, already turning his head.

Because of course it wasn’t anywhere near over yet.

Another ten Grunts were already charging toward them, spilling out from the rupture in a snarling wave.

“Ahhh, shit that fucking hurts… That could’ve definitely gone better,” he heard the giant woman mutter beside him. Seff spared a glance her way and saw her twisting slightly, trying to get a look at the wounds torn into her side.

“You’re damn lucky you’re still alive,” Seff shot back. Relief mixed with irritation as he spoke—she clearly didn’t seem to grasp how close she’d come to dying. If even one Grunt had slipped past and gotten near her torso—or, gods forbid, her face—it would’ve chewed into her vital organs in seconds, either seriously maiming her or killing her outright.

“Yeah, no kidding, eh?” she replied with a chuckle that sounded dangerously unhinged to Seff’s ears.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Is she insane…? Is that what this is?’

Then the giant woman froze, and Seff tensed on instinct.

“Huh. Wait… What?” she muttered, staring down at her own leg. Seff followed her gaze to the very first wound she’d taken—only to see that it had already scabbed over and visibly shrunk.

His eyes widened. 

‘I guess she wasn’t lying after all, when she said she was an Epsilon-rank…’ 

The level of raw power she had presented made sense for an Epsilon-rank Brawler-Morph without any other Major Affinities or side-Powers—especially if the only extra thing she had was something Minor, like weak self-healing.

And it definitely wasn’t strong healing at all. 

The wound wasn’t even fully closed despite being comparatively small, but it was still shrinking and scabbing up way faster than it should have.

A Minor Affinity, no question about it.

Then the pitter-patter of feet and the wet, steaming breaths of Grunts crept too close for comfort. Seff snapped his focus back to the fight.

“Can you keep going?” he asked, eyes locked on the approaching Vyre as he readied himself to cut the first two in half the moment they entered range.

A beat passed. Then he felt the giant woman shift, moving behind and slightly above him, her presence looming.

“Yeah, probably,” she rumbled. “Don’t think a few bites like this will kill me, actually. Great news, I’d say.”

Seff felt a knot of trepidation tightening in his chest at hearing that.

‘She is actually fucking insane.’

Insane Villains were, by far, the second most dangerous kind—right after the ontologically evil ones. And he had just invited her into the team during a major crisis. 

Worse, he’d effectively given her twelve hours of immunity to roam around freely afterward—assuming she didn’t commit any crimes in that time, of course.

‘Archivist is going to chew me out so hard when this is all over…’

The next ten Grunts didn’t last long.

Somehow, despite the chaos, the two of them fell into an almost effortless rhythm. 

The Vigilante moved first, sweeping wide, her reach just as obscene as before, but far more impressive looking up-close like that. She smashed, grabbed, and flung Grunts apart like broken toys. Seven of them never made it past her—bodies bursting against the pavement or sailing into walls with wet, final crunches.

Seff took the other three.

Two tried to bite him, teeth screeching uselessly across his metalbound hide as he carved them apart with quick, efficient strikes. The last one barely had time to lunge at him before he split it clean down the middle, neon-violet blood splashing harmlessly across the asphalt.

Seff’s eyes flicked toward the portal, searching for the next wave—and didn’t immediately find one. His shoulders loosened just a fraction.

For a moment, it felt like they were getting a handle on things.

Then Telly’s voice cut through his head, even more strained than before—the constant use of her Powers was clearly starting to get to her.

“We’ve got incoming. Scythers, I think.”

Seff felt his blood turn cold.

Without hesitation, he shed a large portion of his iron form, the dense weight bleeding away as he kept only a hardened outer layer and his blade-arms intact. 

Full iron wouldn’t save him here—not against Scythers. Mobility mattered far more when facing something that could carve through steel with a single, committed swing.

He turned his head upwards to the Vigilante towering above him. 

“Heads up,” he barked. “Scythers incoming. They’re nothing like Grunts. Way faster and far more cunning. Also, your healing—” his eyes flicked to her injured side, “—it’s not gonna grow back arms or legs… So do not get hit, if you value them.”

Her jaw tightened.

“And whatever happens,” he continued, “keep them away from Rob and Telly. They’ll go for the easiest targets they can reach. They won’t fall for noise or bait like the Grunts do, and if either of them go down, we will get overrun by the Vyre reinforcements in a matter of moments.”

The giant woman let out a low, displeased grunt. “Yeah. Figures. Of course there’d be fucking assholes that go straight for the backline…”

Seff didn’t blame her for the reaction.

Scythers were nightmares made flesh—especially in urban environments like this. 

The only silver lining was that there were no visible civilians nearby. Scythers practically always went for them first, almost as if they could smell weakness—sniffing out anyone unable to defend themselves and treating it like the most tempting meal of all.

The sounds of bodies breaking against the pavement and arrows ripping through Grunts never stopped, filling the crossing as Rob and Telly did their best to hold back the seemingly endless flood of Vyre.

At the same time, Seff felt his focus snag when the Vigilante suddenly shifted her stance, her posture changing enough to immediately draw his eyes.

She shoved one massive hand into the deep pocket of her hoodie and pulled out—

‘A vial…? What’s that…?’ he wondered, watching her closely.

From his angle, all he could really tell was that it was a small container filled with some kind of liquid. Then, without hesitation, the giant woman popped it open with her thumb and, in one smooth motion, flung the contents in a wide swish across the northern side of the road and sidewalk.

A thin film of brown-yellow liquid shimmered briefly in the neon light before it dulled and lost its sheen.

“What’s that?” Seff asked cautiously, glancing up at her. Letting a Villain casually spread chemicals around was… not exactly textbook Hero work.

“Hm… Glue,” the Vigilante rumbled after a moment of audible thought.

“Glue?”

“Glue.”

Seff just stared at her, unimpressed and deeply unconvinced. 

She, however, made no move to explain herself.

Instead, she pulled out another vial, which immediately set his nerves on edge.

‘Where the hell did she get these…? Those are definitely not mundane, are they?’ He thought with growing trepidation. ‘No way she’d be using store-bought glue on Vyre… Right?’

This second vial she opened just as easily, splashing its contents in a similar line across the southern end of the street, sealing off both approaches. 

This liquid looked different—clearer, thinner.

“No, seriously. What are you doing, Nica?” Seff snapped, his voice rising despite himself. “You can’t just throw stuff around like that!”

“Soap,” she replied flatly.

“Soap? What the hell does that mean?!”

“North side’s glue. South side’s soap,” she said, like that settled everything. “You said the Scythers can’t reach Rob and Telly. So they won’t.”

After a moment, she added, “Don’t step on it… Either one, really.”

He was just about to press her for an explanation—this level of communication was completely unacceptable—when Telly’s strained mental voice cut him off cold.

“They’re coming!”

Seff snapped his focus to the tear in reality just a few meters ahead.

“Scythers. Remember—don’t get hit,” he warned the Vigilante. From above him came a low, rumbling sound of acknowledgment.

A heartbeat later, the first Scyther burst through the portal.

Burst wasn’t quite right. It flew through.

The Scyther had clearly jumped from the other side, its body launched like a living missile.

Seff’s eyes widened as the creature came hurtling straight toward him and the Vigilante.

The thing that had come through wasn’t anything like the Grunts.

Its body was unmistakably insectoid—something like a praying mantis fused with alien, almost reptilian features—all sharp angles and layered plates, colored in deep blacks and oily purples that seemed to drink in the light. 

In its hunched stance it was about the size of a large dog—but as it stretched out its coiled body mid-pounce, it suddenly looked as big as a fully grown man, if not bigger. Its head was narrow and distinctly predatory in design, faceted eyes glowing a faint red as they locked onto himself and Nica. 

The real danger, though, were its arms—or what passed for them. 

Massive, curved blade-limbs unfolded as it flew, edges already drawn back for a killing swipe, the razor-sharp chitin catching the neon glow as it hurtled straight toward them.

Seff was just about to step forward and try to intercept the Scyther before it could bring its claws to bear, when an arrow tore clean through its head. The impact killed it instantly and robbed its body of all forward momentum, leaving it to drop lifelessly to the ground in front of them.

“I’ve got you,” Rob’s mental voice came through the link.

“Thanks,” Seff replied, genuinely grateful for the save.

Trying to intercept a Scyther mid-leap was insanely dangerous. 

Even the smallest misstep could get you cut in half in a heartbeat. The size and sharpness of their blade-arms, combined with the sheer speed and mass of a Scyther in motion, made head-on interceptions a great way to die fast.

But sometimes they were the only option.

The portal surged again, reality shuddering as more shapes forced their way through—and this time, the Scythers that made it didn’t throw themselves blindly into the open. 

They poured out low and fast instead, skittering across the pavement before fanning out with frightening coordination—like a pack of wolves.

Grunts followed in droves, a constant, churning mass, but most of them were getting shredded before they could become a real problem. 

Arrows punched through eyes and skulls in steady rhythm, bodies collapsing in sprays of neon-violet, while unseen forces yanked others off their feet or slammed them into the ground hard enough to leave them twitching or still.

The Scythers however, were different.

They moved with purpose and were fast enough to avoid the arrows coming their way.

Two darted wide, trying to slip past Seff and the Vigilante entirely, while another three circled, blade-arms raised, testing for an opening. 

One of them abruptly made a break for the backline.

Seff swore and lunged, iron flashing as he just caught the Scyther with a brutal, diagonal cut in the back, splitting it open before it could finish getting out of his range entirely and dash past them. 

He pivoted immediately, parrying a screeching swipe from another, sparks flying as chitin met metal at an odd-angle, then drove his blade straight through its torso and kicked the body away.

Beside and above him, the Vigilante was a force of devastation.

Her reach let her control space in a way nothing else on the field could. 

One Scyther had lunged and was caught mid-motion as she swept an arm at it, the impact folding the creature in half before it hit the ground. Another tried to leap past her entirely, to go for Rob and Telly, but caught a massive kick in the side instead, its body launched end over end into the street, limbs snapping like dry twigs on impact. 

She crushed a third beneath her heel, then backhanded the final one into the pavement hard enough to leave a small crater in the asphalt.

But for every one they put down, more just kept coming.

Grunts died by the dozen—sliced apart, crushed, shot, or flung aside—but they were almost background noise now. For every five of them that slipped through, a Scyther also followed close behind, fast enough to exploit any gap they left.

Seff tried to track them all, eyes snapping from threat to threat, cutting down the ones bold enough to commit to him or the Vigilante. But his movements were slowing, his attention pulled in too many directions as Scythers kept testing the edges, probing for a way past.

‘We’re getting bogged down, fuck…!’ He realized, but he had no way to stop it.

They were not getting overwhelmed—yet—but definitely pinned in place, numbers stacking against them as the portal continued to bleed a seemingly unending torrent of Vyre into the street.

And Seff knew, with a sinking certainty, that if even one Scyther made it through to Rob and Telly, things would go very, very wrong.

As if it had read his mind, one of the Scythers peeled off and took a wide arc around him and the Vigilante, skirting the center of the street where the portal yawned open and hugging the edges of the buildings instead. 

It skidded along the walkway and shot straight toward the backline.

Seff’s eyes widened as he barely managed to parry another blade-arm, then kicked away a Grunt’s bisected corpse without even looking.

‘Fuck, fuck!’

He tried to carve a path toward the Scyther tearing down the sidewalk, but the constant press of Grunts and Scythers kept him locked in place, forced to defend both himself and Nica. 

Even she, with her massive reach, was getting bogged down.

“You’ve got incoming! North!” he sent frantically to Rob and Telly, hoping—praying—they still had some kind of answer left for the Scyther bearing down on them.

Rob’s answer came back instantly, tight and frustrated. “Can’t take a shot unless it’s slowed or locked down! I’m already at half—can’t waste arrows on a Scyther at full sprint. Wouldn’t hit!”

Telly followed immediately, her mental voice thin and shaking with strain. “I can’t either. If I let go, they’ll overwhelm you and Nica in moments… I’m at my limit here.”

The entire exchange took barely a heartbeat, the telepathic link proving its worth once again—but the content of it made Seff’s stomach drop.

“No—!” he started, forcing himself to push harder, trying to break free of the press in front of him—

Pain exploded along his side.

A Scyther’s blade-arm punched through his iron coating like it wasn’t even there, gouging several centimeters into his flesh underneath. Seff screamed as the shock hit, twisting on instinct and cleaving the creature in half in a wild, furious swing.

There was no time to recover.

Another Scyther lunged in immediately, two Grunts piling on behind it, teeth snapping and claws flashing. Seff staggered back, barely keeping them off him, blood running hot beneath the shattered metal skin.

He was stuck.

Completely, utterly stuck.

And the Scyther he’d called out was already gone, way outside his reach to intercept—darting straight past the edge of the fight, sprinting toward Rob and Telly.

Seff could only watch.

Mute horror clenched his chest as the insectoid shape closed the distance, and the world seemed to slow around him. Old memories crashed into his mind unbidden—screams, blood, the sickening stillness afterward.

Elara… Pyxis…

Bisected bodies burned into his vision, the aftermath of the last time he’d failed to hold the line. The last time a Vyre had slipped through because he hadn’t been enough.

Coiled dread wrapped tight around his heart.

It was happening again.

And there was nothing—nothing—he could do to stop it.

“Ahhh!” he screamed, frustration and anger tearing out of him as he hacked wildly, trying to clear the Grunts and Scythers boxing him in.

Above him, Nica’s massive form was doing the same—crushing, tossing, and swatting away anything that came close, her whole body visibly coiled to break north and intercept. But she was just as busy trying not to get cut in half as he was.

His vision blurred, hot tears mixing with pain and rage as his eyes snapped back to the Scyther that had already slipped past their line. 

Even if they somehow broke free now, they wouldn’t reach it in time.

‘I’m sorry…’ he thought, unable to bring himself to send the words through the link.

Abruptly, the Scyther stopped dead in its tracks, leg bones snapping violently as it slammed face-first into the pavement and let out a pained, high-pitched screech.

For a split second, Seff just stared, his mind lagging behind what his eyes were telling him. 

Then the tension broke and he sucked in a sharp breath, relief crashing into him so hard it almost made his knees buckle. He only barely managed to duck under another Scyther’s blade-arm, feeling the wind of it whip over his head, and answered by slicing a nearby Grunt clean in half without even looking.

“Good fucking job, Telly!” he fired through the link, adrenaline still spiking.

There was no pride or relief in her response—only exhaustion. “Wasn’t me.”

“Huh?” Rob cut in immediately. “Wait, what? I thought that was you too.”

“It wasn’t,” Telly insisted, her mental voice tight and fraying at the edges. “I told you, I’m at my limit here. I don’t have the focus to grab a Scyther that far out, not without letting everything at the portal overwhelm you two. And even if I had done it, it wouldn’t have just lost its legs—I would’ve smashed the whole thing.”

Seff barely had time to process that before another Scyther came at him. 

He parried its blade with one arm, sparks skittering off his iron skin, then riposted with the other, cutting straight through its torso. As the body fell apart, his eyes flicked north again—toward the Scyther still writhing on the pavement.

And then it finally clicked, as his eyes caught the faint outline of the strange line of matte-orange chemical the Vigilante had left behind earlier.

“Glue…” the word slipped out over the link before he could stop himself.

There was a beat of silence for a heartbeat. 

Then Rob sent, confused. “Come again?”

“What? Glue?” Telly echoed.

Seff clenched his jaw as another Grunt’s teeth bounced uselessly off his chest before it got crushed by Nica’s arm swiping across the enemies. “The Vigilante. She threw something down on the north side earlier. Said it was “glue.” South side’s “soap,” apparently. Didn’t explain beyond that though.”

Rob let out a sharp, disbelieving huff. “What kind of “glue” makes a Scyther snap its own legs and eat pavement at full sprint like that?”

“I don’t know,” Seff replied, cutting down another Grunt as it lunged past him. 

Of course, he had never thought it was normal glue, not even for a second—not when she had brought it out specifically while knowing she was facing Vyre. 

Still, seeing the result firsthand sent a chill down his spine. 

Whatever that stuff was however, it was terrifyingly effective.

“Nica,” he called out, raising his voice to catch the Vigilante’s attention. A low rumble of acknowledgement followed as she kicked yet another Scyther so hard that Seff wouldn’t have been surprised if it landed in a neighboring district. “What the hell was that glue you threw up north? It worked insanely well… but, like, what is that stuff, exactly? You got more?”

He used the brief lull in the incoming horde—courtesy of the Vyre pulling back to dodge Nica’s last kick—to take two quick steps forward. 

The closer he got to the portal, the better. Every step he was closer to it, the harder for another Scyther to slip past him and Nica like that again.

He had been trying to inch closer to the portal the entire time, but with the Scyther almost breaking through to the north earlier, he hadn’t had the luxury until now. 

“Nah. That was all of it,” Nica replied, swiping another couple of Grunts straight back into the next dimension—which just so happened to be the concrete facade of a nearby building.

Seff noted immediately that she still hadn’t answered the other, more important question. 

Normally, he would’ve let that slide—but the way she was sidestepping it entirely gave him a bad feeling…

‘Can’t push her too hard… She’s got no obligation to answer, legally speaking. But… she seems like a decent person at heart—even if she’s a Villain, for her own reasons. That’s something I can work with.’

With that in mind, he shifted his approach and asked more carefully, “So… what was it, then? Looked extremely useful. Wouldn’t mind getting some for the team, if it’s something we can get our hands on. Just saved our lives, after all.”

He managed another two steps forward after slicing through three oncoming Grunts that had body-blocked the Scyther trying to get to him at the same time. It was a good thing that Grunts and Scythers didn’t share the same pack-like maneuvering that Scythers had with each other.

He felt the ground tremble slightly as Nica crushed a Scyther under her boot while stepping up behind him—each of her strides easily covering three of his, putting her almost directly above him again.

‘She’s a natural at this whole team thing,’ he thought. ‘She’d make a great Hero, if she could be convinced to join us…’

Just when he thought Nica had decided to stay silent, she let out a huffing breath and said, “Just something I picked up for emergencies. You Heroes aren’t the only ones with Crafter-types, y’know?”

The words made the hair on the back of Seff’s neck stand up as they confirmed his worst suspicions.

‘Fuck.’

While the most dangerous Villains were the outright evil or completely insane ones, the most troublesome by far were smart Crafter-types—the ones who built arsenals and handed them out to other Villains. 

The ones who never showed themselves, leaving behind nothing but their creations.

They sat right at the top of every Hero watchlist, and rooting them out was one of the first priorities for any new Hero branch in a region. Because left unchecked, Crafter-type Villains were easily one of the biggest threats to civilization as a whole.

There hadn’t been a bold Crafter-type openly supplying Villains in years—at least not anywhere on Nova Terrae. But based on Nica’s words, that might no longer be true.

‘Archivist needs to hear about this as soon as possible,’ he thought grimly. ‘We need to find that Crafter and get them off the streets—especially if that “glue” is one of their creations. If a Speedster-type ever hits that mid-sprint…’

He shuddered, imagining what would happen to someone like Felice if she stepped into it the way the Scyther had, while chasing down a Villain.

“Where did you—” he started, but Nica cut him off immediately.

“Not something I can get again, I think. Was a chance run-in.”

‘Figures for a Crafter-type like that… Damn it!’

“Ah, that’s fair,” he said, pushing another step closer to the portal, now only two meters away. “This should be a good spot for us to hold. Scythers shouldn’t be able to get around us now.”

Assuming they didn’t just jump straight over them—but given Nica’s height and reach, that was a very, very unlikely scenario.

She just grunted in acknowledgment, then slapped another group of Grunts away from them. Seff cut down a few more himself, then used the brief lull before the next wave reached them to glance at his watch.

‘It’s only been four minutes…?!’ he realized, dread creeping in.

With Telly sounding closer and closer to collapse every time they spoke over the link, and Rob having mentioned he was already below half his ammo what felt like ages ago, things were not looking good for holding out until reinforcements arrived.

‘We might have to fall back and find some kind of choke point… Even if that means a couple of the safe rooms around here might get found. Keeping the majority of the Vyre under control has to be the priority though… right?’ 

He was starting to seriously consider it, as much as he hated the thought as a whole. 

But he was the team leader. 

Making tough calls like that was his responsibility—and his burden.

“How long can you keep going, Telly?” he sent over the link, still holding the line right next to the portal with Nica as Grunts and Scythers kept getting smashed into the ground by Telly and ripped apart by Rob’s arrows around them without pause. “Rob, how’s your ammo?”

“A minute, maybe. A bit longer if I really push it,” she replied. “No longer checking for minds though; we’re blind. I’m sorry.” 

Seff listened closely to the strain in her mental voice, judging whether she was underselling it. 

Telly had always had a bit of a hero complex—as ironic as that was, given the situation—and she often downplayed how exhausted she really was. But this time, based on experience, she sounded about as honest as her personality allowed.

‘She knows how bad this is. Even Telly wouldn’t lie in a life-or-death situation like this…’

“About a quarter left. Two to three minutes if I’m careful and focus on the Scythers. One minute or less otherwise,” Rob sent back almost at the same time, the telepathic link once again saving them precious seconds.

That, really, was the main difference between more purely martial-based Powered like himself and Nica, compared to resource-based Powered like Rob and Telly. 

Less versatility and less burst power, but far better sustained combat ability.

“Nica, how are you holding up?” he asked the Vigilante, wanting the full picture before making any rash calls. His instinct was to pull back, but he also knew his past experiences were pushing him harder toward the safest options in every situation than he should be accepting.

What had happened to Elara and Pyxis though… he would never let that happen again, as long as he lived.

“Mostly fine,” Nica started, her voice a low rumble above him. “Couple of bites, nothing too—”

She cut off mid-sentence.

Seff looked up at her at the exact same time she stiffened. 

“Something’s off,” she muttered, staring at the portal while almost absent-mindedly back handing a Grunt into non-existence.

Before he could even ask what she meant or follow her gaze towards the portal, Telly’s voice screamed through his mind, raw with panic. “Iron, watch out!”

He never even saw what happened.

The iron skin across his chest simply shattered. 

It cracked and burst as if struck by a wrecking ball, the reinforced metal ribs beneath it splintering all at once. Pain exploded through him, and his vision vanished as the force picked him up and hurled him violently to the side.

The world spun for less than a fraction of a second.

Then, he felt himself slam through the facade of a nearby building, concrete and glass detonating around him as he crashed inside a living room with a thunderous spray of debris…

—

—

Answering the Hero’s question about my Formulae had been a bit of a spur-of-the-moment thing, and in hindsight, I almost definitely could have handled it better.

‘But at least he seems mollified and didn’t connect me directly to making them,’ I thought, weighing my choices. ‘And I couldn’t exactly let the Scythers reach our backline, could I now?’

I’d tried to hold back my Vials for as long as possible, but there was a big difference between vague future problems and very real, Scyther-shaped ones right here and now. 

I definitely knew which of those mattered more.

I stomped another three Grunts, keeping my eyes on the portal opening in front of Iron and me at all times. 

Grunts and Scythers kept spilling out in a never-ending tide of biomass, some of the Scythers even deciding to fling themselves straight through the tear. Those latter ones, I had to snatch out of the air with my reach, before they could get close enough to try and cut my head off.

Injury-wise, I’d gotten off surprisingly light so far, which was more a testament to the Heroes’ efforts than my own, I knew.

‘Without Telly and Rob, Iron and I would’ve been overrun ages ago… I need a better plan for drawn-out fights like this if I ever want to help people properly. Or I just always sign on with a Hero team as a Vigilante, I guess...’

“Nica, how are you holding up?” Iron’s voice called from a bit in front of me, him having stepped another few steps closer to the portal, likely to keep another Scyther from slipping past us—which, fair and very prudent.

“Mostly fine,” I answered after a brief moment of double-checking my own wounds, which had mostly scabbed up by now. “Couple of bites, nothing too—”

My answer was cut off by a sudden, renewed pull from the portal right in front of us, making me stumble half a step forward. It had been sitting at a constant, low-level tug ever since it had opened—until now.

“Something’s off,” I muttered, trying to focus on the strange sensation, just as Iron’s head whipped around to look at me with clear concern written all over his face.

I tried to make sense of what exactly it was that I was feeling and realized then, that it wasn’t just a pull towards the portal itself, but a strange sixth sense reaching out beyond the portal—towards something on the other side.

Something that was the target of that pull and… Getting stronger?

‘No, not getting stronger…!’ My eyes widened as another potential explanation hit me. ‘Getting closer?!’

At that exact moment, everything happened at once.

I tried to shout a warning—tried to tell Iron and the others that something big was coming, that whatever that sense was screaming at me was right on top of us now—but I didn’t even get a single word out.

An arm punched through the portal.

Not a Grunt. Not a Scyther. 

An arm the size of a tree trunk, muscle packed so dense it looked like an experiment gone horribly wrong, skin dark purple and ridged like stone.

Iron whipped around instantly, his whole body plating over in thick, desperate layers of his namesake as panic flashed through his movement. He didn’t even have time to finish turning his head—Telly must’ve screamed into the link the instant it appeared for him to even react in this way—but before he could even step back or fully face it, a second arm followed.

The second one was far faster and not simply saying hello.

The impact hit like a bomb.

A deafening crack tore through the street as the Brute’s fist slammed into Iron, the shockwave blasting outward from where he stood just two meters in front of me. 

Iron vanished in a blink, the sound of metal screaming and reinforced bones shattering mixing together in a way that made my stomach drop. An instant later—practically at the same moment—his body smashed through a concrete facade across the street, disappearing into the building beyond.

He didn’t splatter. That was the only thing my brain managed to register of his fate.

My focus snapped back to the portal as the rest of the thing stepped through.

A Brute.

Seeing one in real life was nothing like the footage. Nothing like the games or the news clips. Nothing like the dead Scythers or Grunts I had seen in the university’s xenobiology classes before.

It was utterly fucking massive—even compared to my monstrous form—standing around four meters tall, broad and thick, with four huge arms hanging from its torso, two on each side, all corded with obscene strength. 

Its body was mostly humanoid, but warped and thoroughly wrong to look at, evidently built for nothing but violence. Three eyes stared back at me from a flat, noseless face, the center one set high on its forehead and burning with red-hot fury as it locked onto me.

Its mouth split open in a silent snarl, revealing rows of razor teeth framed by four massive tusks jutting outward like broken spears.

Rob’s arrows slammed into it the very moment it had fully stepped through the portal, impacts thudding into its chest and shoulder, one after another. 

The Brute barely flinched at the impacts. It raised one massive hand to shield its head, and the remaining arrows of Rob’s volley sank only a few centimeters into its skin before stopping dead, doing little more than drawing shallow, dark wounds.

I stood there for a fraction of a second, shellshocked, staring up at it with my heart hammering in my ears.

‘I—Iron just got taken out in a single hit…’ My thoughts scrambled, struggling to catch up. ‘A single hit from the Brute just took out our fucking Tank…!’

And now it was looking straight at me.

“Nica, run!” I heard Telly’s desperate—if thoroughly strained—cry from behind me, and that finally snapped me out of the shock of seeing a Brute simply appear a few meters away.

I took the advice without hesitation, pushing myself off and away from the portal as hard as my massive legs could manage in a backward leap. As I did, I saw the Brute seize up for just a moment—the Hero holding it back from immediately reaching for me and tearing me apart.

‘I’m not going to outrun the Scythers. No shot,’ I realized at once, as their beady eyes locked onto my retreating form, legs coiling as they prepared to leap after me.

A few of them—along with some of the remaining Grunts—were torn apart by Rob’s near-invisible arrows almost right away, but even with the insane firing speed he’d kicked into now that shit had truly hit the fan, he wasn’t going to get all of them.

‘No point holding anything back anymore. I’ll just fucking die if I fuck around now,’ I thought mid-air, and quickly yanked out and hurled three grenades from my pocket—the random number my fingers simply managed to grab and throw in one frantic motion.

The perfectly round balls flew from my hands in a wild arc, almost entirely random as they scattered through the air ahead of me. 

Without Telly fully holding the line anymore and Rob splitting his focus to put arrows into the Brute instead of thinning the herd, the space in front of me was packed—two dozen Grunts at least, and maybe a third as many Scythers, all clustered around the massive Brute that was still straining against Telly’s telekinetic grip.

The first grenade struck the flesh of a Grunt—and then detonated.

A violent, compact blast tore through a knot of Grunts, the shockwave kicking bodies sideways, but it was the shrapnel inside that did the real damage. Nails and jagged fragments of the casing burst outward in every direction, ripping through half a dozen Grunts and slicing into nearby Scythers in the span of a heartbeat. 

A split second later, the second grenade went off, then the third—one of them detonating right in front of the Brute. Three sharp explosions cracked through the night, followed immediately by a chorus of shrill, furious screeches.

When the chaos cleared, more than two thirds of the Vyre in front of me were simply gone—blown apart by proximity to the explosions themselves, shredded open, or left sprawled across the pavement in bleeding heaps. 

The rest staggered or writhed, neon-violet blood pooling beneath them as strips of flesh peeled away where shrapnel had torn through muscle, skin and plate alike. 

Even the Brute looked mightily unhappy, its thick hide peppered with embedded nails and casing fragments, neon-violet blood slowly seeping out between them—wounds already trying to close, but very clearly having hurt it.

I finally hit the ground from my frantic backward jump, boots skidding on the asphalt, staring at the carnage I’d just made and sucking in a shaky breath.

‘Note to self: Never use these on people. Holy fuck,’ I thought, unable to tear my eyes away from the devastation the three grenades had left behind.

My jump had put a good ten meters between me and the Brute, which sounded like a lot, but given its size, reach, and the thick muscles packed into its legs, I didn’t feel safe in the slightest. 

I quickly flung my last two remaining grenades toward the Vyre still clustered near the portal, hoping to thin them out and buy us some time—because, strangely enough, the endless flood seemed to have slowed, if not outright stopped entirely. 

With the Brute’s arrival, no new Vyre had apparently come through the portal, and for the first time I noticed our enemies were actually dwindling, little by little.

That fragile sense of relief shattered immediately, however.

I heard Telly cry out behind me, a pained, exhausted sound, and the massive Vyre tore itself free from her grip. Its third eye locked onto her, burning with hatred, and then it moved—fast. Way too fast. 

It simply grabbed two nearby Scythers with its massive hands and hurled them toward Rob and Telly like they were nothing but thrown weapons.

I barely had time to process what was happening as everything blurred together, one moment after the next. 

My grenades went off, ripping apart most of the remaining Grunts and Scythers near the Brute and peppering the hulking thing with even more shrapnel, all at the exact same time the Scythers were hurled through the air towards the Heroes behind me.

I tried to move—tried to intercept the flying Scythers somehow—but the Brute’s throws were stupidly accurate and terrifyingly fast. I didn’t even come close to catching either of them.

The first Scyther hit Rob like a freight train. 

He managed to loose an arrow at the last possible instant, the shot punching straight through the creature’s head—but the body still slammed into him with the Brute’s full throwing force behind it. 

Rob went down hard, skidding across the asphalt in a tangle of limbs. Even from this distance, I heard the wet crack of breaking bone, and I prayed it was only the Scyther’s body giving out.

Telly, however, didn’t get that same chance.

She was already spent—I could see it now as my eyes followed the happenings, her stance loose, her focus gone after holding the Brute for so long. The Scyther reached her while it was still mid-air, its blade-arm sweeping down in one clean, brutal arc. 

My eyes went wide as my legs kicked off the ground on pure instinct, my body launching forward as fast as it could move.

I was way too far away.

Telly screamed as the blade cut through her diagonally, from her right shoulder down through her torso and right leg. 

Flesh, armor, bone—cut through and ripped apart in an instant. 

She collapsed in a spray of blood, what was left of her hitting the ground hard as she bled out in torrents onto the street.

“Telly!” Rob screamed from below the other Scyther’s body, his voice breaking, wrestling to try and get his bow back in shooting position, just as the Scyther landed and reared back for another strike, its blade already lining up for her head.

It never landed.

The asphalt to the Scyther’s left exploded upward as Iron slammed down beside it, having fallen from somewhere high nearby. His left arm flashed, catching the glow of a nearby advertisement in its iron sheen, and sliced clean through the Vyre, killing it in a single motion.

The body fell apart before it even understood it was dead.

Iron swayed where he stood. 

His right arm hung limp and useless, and half his face was crushed beneath warped layers of iron and blood. His eye—or eye, really, since the left was completely buried under the iron-and-blood mess holding him together—met mine, still sharp and focused despite the extensive damage.

“Our target is there, Nica,” he rasped, jerking his head toward the Brute. 

Then, without looking back, he added, “Rob—take care of Telly.”

The iron peeled back from his body as he forced himself to move again, limping forward toward me and the Brute as fast as he could manage.

To say that I was conflicted would’ve been a massive understatement. 

Telly was going to bleed the fuck out in minutes at the absolute most, her injuries just as bad—if not worse—than Sadie’s had been a couple of weeks ago… But Iron knew combat better than I did.

‘But he also doesn’t know that I can help her…!’ I thought, scrambling to decide if listening to him was really the right call. ‘Maybe I just toss the Vials to Rob and let him figure it out…?’

My hand slipped into my pocket, fingers brushing over the few remaining things I had, but before I could even find the right ones, I saw Rob already kneeling next to Telly—the poor girl somehow still awake—and pulling out his own first-aid supplies.

I let out a quiet breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. ‘Right… Heroes have their own Crafter-types. She’ll be fine. Rob’s got her…’

Fine was probably an extreme stretch, and I knew it, but I needed to believe it just long enough to focus on what mattered right now: Keeping the Brute busy.

I turned back toward it and took in the aftermath of my last two Alchemist’s Bombs. Of the small Vyre army, only a handful of Grunts and two Scythers were still moving, and none of them were untouched. Neon-violet blood coated the street beneath the portal in a near-solid layer, the glow from nearby ads reflecting off it and turning everything a luminescent pinkish hue.

Worst of all was the Brute, of course. 

It seemed downright amused by Telly’s condition, its massive mouth pulled into a large, toothy grin. Its body was riddled with wounds from the grenades, but the shrapnel didn’t seem to bother it much beyond forcing its regeneration to keep pushing nails and fragments back out.

“I’m not sure how to deal with it,” I admitted as Iron limped up beside me. “This… this is not how I pictured my first Vyre Incursion to go.”

“It’s shit, isn’t it?” he chuckled, then broke into a wet cough and spat blood onto the street—probably a punctured lung somewhere. “The one time a Vigilante worth bringing along shows up, we get a fucking Brute. Still… thanks for trying to keep them safe, Nica.”

I grimaced. 

Had I really done much at all? It didn’t feel like it, not with Telly lying there like that.

“You got anything left?” he asked as we started moving toward the Brute, which was thankfully giving us a few seconds to regroup—for whatever twisted reason that thing’s mind worked on.

I considered, for maybe half a second, keeping the Alchemist’s Fire hidden—then threw that thought out completely. This was life or death, no way around it.

I could probably escape the Brute if I tried. Especially because Iron, Rob, and Telly couldn’t. 

But there was no chance in hell I was going to be just another asshole like that motherfucking “Hero” who had let Sadie die for nothing.

‘There’s no way I’m leaving them…’

“One last thing,” I said quietly. “Never used it before. Some kind of liquid fire.” 

I kept my voice low, just in case. 

I was pretty sure the Vyre didn’t understand us—but I wasn’t actually certain about that.

‘Something to research if I somehow survive this,’ I noted grimly.

“Liquid fire…?” Iron repeated, equal parts surprised and concerned. He went quiet for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll be the Scyther for us. My blade should be able to cut the Brute, but I won’t survive another hit. You keep its attention and give me an opening.”

I sighed heavily. 

I’d expected exactly that plan. It was the only one that made sense. 

The Brute was bigger, stronger, and tougher than me, but I was tougher than Iron was at this point, while he had more direct power than I did. 

So all I could really do was distract it and buy Iron a chance.

“Use the fire whenever you think it’ll help,” he added, followed by another wet chuckle and cough. “Just… try not to hit me.”

“You sure you can handle this?” I asked, eyeing him through my mask. “How long until your reinforcements?”

“No, I can’t,” he answered immediately and shook his head, catching me off guard. “And far too long.”

Then he looked up at me and said, “That’s why we’ll have to do it anyway. Statistically, this is beyond suicidal. You should run, Nica.”

There was no accusation in his voice. It made my chest tighten. 

This was a real recommendation. 

He wouldn’t hold it against me if I took it—I could tell right away. The honesty flaring out from his one remaining eye staring up at me made that abundantly clear.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

‘I really should run. This is stupid. Even the experienced Hero says it’s stupid. Suicide—his words, not mine. Just run, Triss. You finally have a path to get Sadie back, so why are you still here, risking your life for people you don’t even know?’

But that was the point, wasn’t it?

What was the point of trying to bring Sadie back if I turned into someone she would never respect—or even want to be around—afterward?

There was pragmatism, which she would respect and begrudgingly accept. And then there was the very thing both of us had hated about Powered society since day one: People with power choosing not to use it for those who couldn’t protect themselves.

If I left now, Iron, Rob, and Telly would die. No doubt about it.

And after that, hundreds of civilians hiding in nearby safe rooms would die too, once the Brute finished playing with the Heroes’ bodies.

“Can we win?” I asked at last.

We were only ten meters from the Brute now—well within range for any of us to jump in at a moment’s notice.

Iron took a few seconds to think about my question—actually thought about it, which I appreciated—then finally nodded.

“If we’re lucky.”

That was it, then.

That made the pragmatic choice of leaving—if this really was a zero-sum game as he had hinted at before—no longer viable.

I had to stay and try, if there was an actual chance that we could win.

‘Fuck me, I’m scared,’ I realized as I stared up at the amused grimace of the Vyre in front of us. The coil of dread in my chest tightened, squeezing the air from my lungs.

But, really, even that level of fear was nothing compared to the fear and despair I’d felt watching that “Hero” float away, leaving me behind with Sadie’s dying body.

This, I could handle. 

I had Power now. I could do this.

“Let’s do it, then,” I whispered, as much to myself as to Iron.

“Thank you, Nica,” he replied, a surprising amount of emotion in his voice that I didn’t fully have the focus for to register in the moment.

I pulled out the Vial of Alchemist’s Fire with my left hand, eyes locked on the Brute as it sank slightly into a ready stance—clearly sensing that Iron and I were done preparing.

‘Alright… Showtime, Triss. Don’t fucking die, or Sadie’s going to come down from heaven and kick your ass down in hell—and you’d fucking deserve it, too,’ I told myself, focusing on the Vial.

I stripped away its inherent toughness.

“Go,” I said.

Iron rushed right as I moved left and I hurled the Vial straight at the Brute with all the strength I could muster.

The Vyre reacted instantly, swatting at it with incredible speed—exactly what I’d hoped for.

The now-fragile glass shattered on impact, the liquid splashing across its hands and arms, the force of my throw carrying it further over its second arm and across the entire right side of its body.

Then it ignited.

Both Iron and I staggered as a brutal heatwave slammed into us, completely unprepared for how violent and intense the Alchemist’s Fire burned.

The Brute bellowed, its eyes wide with rage and agony as it tried to fling the flames off—only to realize the burning liquid clung to its flesh like I’d thrown a Vial of [Adhesive Liquid] on it too.

My eyes widened at the sight. 

‘Holy fuck… This stuff is basically super napalm or something! What the hell, Convergence?! Why can I make Vial-sized super napalm?!’

“Don’t let the flames touch you!” I bellowed, realizing half a second later how stupid that sounded—obviously Iron knew better than to touch super napalm, even without my genius advice.

Still, my opening gambit had somehow worked. 

The Brute was completely distracted now, thrashing and trying to put itself out, while the Alchemist’s Fire rapidly ate through the entire right side of its body. Its regeneration fought back, but the flames burned far, far faster than I ever would’ve thought possible.

I tried to step in, hoping to sneak a hit or two, but the sheer heat rolling off the Brute put the fear of god in me. If I misstepped and even just brushed against the fire stuck to its body, I’d be in way worse shape than the Vyre—my self-healing wasn’t even close to that strong.

So I stayed a few meters back, simply watching as it panicked. 

First it wildly flailed its massive arms, then—stupidly—tried to pat the flames out, only to realize that touching the sticky fire was a thoroughly terrible idea. 

The flames spread to its first left hand the moment it made contact.

Bellowing in rage and pain, it grabbed some of the Vyre corpses at its feet and dragged the mess of flesh, bone, and blood across the burning parts of its body, setting them alight as well.

At first, I hoped even that wouldn’t help. 

But after repeating the process a few times, the flames on the Brute visibly weakened, spreading instead to a dozen nearby corpses that it haphazardly threw over its shoulder as the burning liquid was scraped away.

The massive Vyre finally dropped to one knee, the right side of its body reduced to a charred husk—the Alchemist’s Fire far more powerful than I had ever imagined possible.

But ultimately, the fire burned out and the Brute was still alive.

The smell of burnt Vyre flesh—somehow even more acrid and throat-searing than the human variety—hung thick over the street, but it didn’t stop me from stepping in to do my job.

The Brute, however, was more than ready for me. 

It met my punch aimed at its twisted face with its last undamaged hand, blocking it outright. I followed up immediately, slamming my second fist in, only for it to catch that too with its charred left hand. 

Its face warped in pain as my fist hit the burned limb—but it still stopped me cold.

I jumped back just in time as it whipped its arm around to retaliate, the massive fist barely missing me before smashing into the asphalt where I’d been standing, spiderweb cracks ripping through the street.

The fight turned desperate fast.

The Brute barely moved from its spot, but somehow it still controlled the space. 

Every time I stepped in, it met me with brute force that rattled my bones, even slowed and half-burned as it was. I slammed into its chest, felt muscle and armor-like flesh give a little, then got swatted aside hard enough that my boots skidded across the street.

Iron darted in the moment I drew its attention, blade-arms flashing as he went for the Brute’s side. The Vyre twisted with shocking speed, rolling its massive body across the pavement and dragging itself upright on its one remaining leg, Iron’s blades slicing nothing but scorched air.

“Shit,” I growled, charging again.

I went high this time, forcing it to bring its good arm up. 

Iron took the cue immediately, lunging in low, aiming for the last remaining good knee. 

The Brute roared and kicked out, the force of it slamming Iron aside with a loud boom before his blade could land, sending him skidding back across the asphalt in a shower of sparks.

Again.

I smashed my shoulder into the Brute’s torso, feeling cracked plates and cooked flesh grind under the impact. It staggered half a step. 

Iron was there instantly, swinging for the leg again.

The Brute jumped over the blade.

Its counter came in like a freight train, a backhand that clipped my ribs and sent me stumbling, my breath exploding out of my lungs as I felt several bones simply snap. 

Iron barely avoided the follow-up, the fist missing him by centimeters.

That was when it clicked for me.

This wasn’t going to last.

Every exchange was closer than the last. 

Every swing from the Brute was faster, tighter and more precise than the last. 

‘One mistake… One mistimed step back and Iron and I will die…’

So I made a choice.

I stepped in again and threw a punch—but this time, I didn’t try to dodge the Vyre’s retaliation.

The Brute blocked and countered once again, but instead of retreating right away, I planted my feet and brought both arms up to block.

I needed to buy Iron an extra micro-second of time, to bring his blade to bare.

The impact was catastrophic.

Something snapped in my left arm with a loud, sickening crack and white-hot pain tore through me as I screamed, the force driving me back half a step—but I stayed in it regardless. I forced my right arm forward with all the strength I could muster, trying to slam a punch into its chest and keeping it locked with me for just a heartbeat longer.

My fist was caught mid-swing, stopped cold with a loud, echoing slap as the Brute’s uninjured hand seized it. 

Then I saw the burned hand coming up, straight for my face.

Too fast.

I couldn’t get away.

I yanked my head back as far as I could just as the fist crashed into the lower half of my mask. It shattered on impact, fragments flying as my vision exploded into stars and my body was sent sprawling backward, my skull ringing like it had been hit by a sledgehammer.

Through the haze, however—through the pain, stars in my eyes and the ringing in my ears—I heard Iron roar in exertion.

Metal screamed as it cut into flesh.

There was a wet, tearing, slicing sound—then a sharp, ringing clang, metal striking something solid deep inside the Brute’s body.

I recovered surprisingly fast, my eyes taking a second to refocus, only to see Iron stumble away from the Brute, clear confusion on his face as it was obvious he had tried to cut the Vyre clean in half. 

The Brute roared weakly, its movements slowing by the second as half its body had been ripped wide open by Iron’s coated blade-arm.

Ignoring the pounding headache, I rushed in as fast as my legs could carry me—which was damn fast, the asphalt beneath my feet cracking and bursting as I moved with all my might—and threw the hardest kick I could manage at the kneeling Brute’s head. 

It was still reaching for Iron, trying to react to the major damage it had been dealt, and its slowed movements gave me just enough time.

I felt the bones in my foot crack as my boot connected with its head.

For a split second, time seemed to freeze, stretched thin like a hit frame stretched to infinity by the developers. Then it snapped back in, and a thunderous boom echoed through the street as flesh and bone collided with far too much force.

The Brute’s head snapped sideways, its body finally giving out as it slammed brutally into the asphalt. Bone shattered, flesh splattered, and its head pancaked against the ground—leaving behind a shallow crater where it hit.

I was left standing on one foot, the other screaming in pain, breathing hard as I stared at the Brute’s unmoving body.

It felt like an eternity passed, where Iron and I simply stared at the dead Brute, as if we were both just waiting for it to get back up—but even its wounds had stopped healing entirely, confirming that it was, in-fact, dead.

“We… we fucking did it,” I said, the words feeling unreal as they left my mouth.

Iron stumbled, then dropped to one knee, clutching his ruined right side. He breathed hard, vomited blood onto the street, and still managed to say, “We did.”

The portal beside us winked out of existence as if it had never been there at all—and that was when something caught the light.

A glint of green, buried deep in the neon-violet mess that used to be the Brute.

My heart skipped. 

The pull I’d been feeling all along snapped tight and dragged my focus straight to it: A fist-sized fragment of emerald, lodged inside the Brute’s body like it had just been waiting to be cut free.

‘This… this can’t be a coincidence…’

I couldn’t look away.

Iron’s blade hadn’t just snagged on bone.

My Power was practically screaming at me to take it. 

I knew it in my gut, in my teeth, in the back of my skull: It was a fragment of the Emerald Tablet. The very thing my Power had tasked me to find just that same morning.

‘Here? Now...? Inside the body of a Brute of the very first Vyre Incursion I have ever seen?’

There was absolutely no universe where that was pure random chance.

Before I could even begin to process the implications of all that, Rob’s voice tore through the street, raw with panic.

“Seff!”

Iron’s head snapped around to his teammate instantly. He tried to push himself up, staggered, and started limping toward Rob, stubborn as hell despite the state he was in.

I didn’t even think. My busted foot protested, but it held—likely thanks to my mild self-healing. I scooped Iron up under one arm, the Hero thankfully smart enough to dismiss most of his iron and make himself a carryable weight, and broke into a run toward Rob and Telly, the asphalt cracking under my massive strides.

Even injured, I was still far, far faster than Iron—or Seff, apparently—had any hope of being right now.

Mere moments later, we managed to get next to Rob and Telly, Iron’s face turning grim at the sight—and I couldn’t help but mirror it. Half of my face was still hidden behind the mask, thankfully, I realized as the cool air hit my sweat- and blood-soaked chin.

Telly, however, looked bad.

The stump where her shoulder had been was tightly bandaged, but the fabric was already completely soaked through. 

Parts of the massive wound had been treated with some kind of ointment that seemed to be keeping the rest of her insides from spilling out, but she was still bleeding heavily.

“Fuck,” Seff muttered, his voice dipping hard into panic. He started patting himself down, rummaging through his pockets for anything that might help. “Keep applying pressure, Rob.”

He glanced back toward the building he’d been thrown through earlier. “I’m a fucking moron. I lost my damn pack up there… Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Your reinforcements?” I asked, fingers brushing the Vials in my pocket. They were the last ones I had for the day, and they likely wouldn’t be enough to save Telly given how bad the damage was—but they’d be something.

Seff checked the watch on his arm, the iron pulling back just long enough for it to work. “Six minutes.”

I was surprised to hear that the entire battle had only lasted around five minutes, but really, that was adrenaline as well as life-and-death combat for you, wasn’t it?

“Can your healer save her?” I asked

He audibly grimaced. “Rescue only stabilizes people… He—he’s not meant for injuries like this...”

I took half a step toward Telly and pulled the Vials from my pocket—then froze as a horrible realization hit me like a lightning strike.

‘We cleared the Incursion. The Brute was the boss… and its most obvious, valuable loot is the fragment. Even the Heroes will realize that right away,’ my thoughts raced as the whole situation snapped into focus. ‘Even with everything I did, there are three Heroes and I’m alone. I won’t have anywhere near fifty percent contribution. No matter how much I argue, it’ll never be enough to claim the shard…’

I almost gagged at the thought of what I realized I might have to do.

‘Sadie has to come first, no matter what… Even if Sadie would hate me for this. But Telly isn’t powerless… The most basic rule doesn’t apply here,’ I decided, bile creeping up my throat.

I hated myself for it. Sadie would too, no doubt. 

But I had to prioritize bringing her back—no matter the cost. That was the promise I’d made to myself earlier that day, and I wasn’t backing out now that I had a tangible first step within reach.

‘No matter what,’ I reminded myself, forcing my heart to harden.

I froze, my hand still in my pocket, then spoke the words that sealed my place in hell—if there’d ever been any doubt left.

“I can save her.”

Iron and Rob’s eyes widened as they snapped around to look at me, both of them finally tearing their focus away from Telly.

“Fucking do it!”

“Nica, please!”

They spoke at the same time.

I took a shallow breath, my broken ribs screaming in protest, then slowly shook my head.

“What…? Why?!” Seff asked, his voice cracking as he staggered back a step, like I’d just physically slapped him across the face.

I saw it in his eyes.

The pain of pure betrayal. Someone he’d trusted with his life until just now, shattered in a single instant. It almost made me throw up, but the thought of Sadie coming back kept me moving forward.

“You have to help her! We’re a team! You made it so yourself, Vigilante!” Rob yelled, his bow snapping into his hand as he aimed an arrow at my head from barely half a meter away.

“I don’t, actually,” I said slowly, calmly. Legally, he couldn’t touch me—but emotions didn’t care much about the law in situations like this, so I had to step carefully. “The law your organization wrote says Heroes and Villains only have to help during active combat and not interfere with each other. That’s it. It was set up by your side—on purpose, mind you—so you wouldn’t have to patch Villains back up if they got hurt badly enough. The number of Villains caught because they were too injured to escape before the truce timer ran out isn’t zero, is it? Even with you guys having Healer-types always waiting in the wings.”

Rob’s bow shook in his hands, the string pulled so tight I thought it might snap. 

“What the fuck does that matter here?!” he snarled, voice raw. “That’s Telly! She kept you fucking alive this whole time—damn it, she kept all of us alive! Even when the Brute showed up, she focused on keeping you alive, you fucking bitch!”

I forced myself to take a step back, heart hammering, just in case he actually let the arrow fly. I doubted I could dodge it in time—but even half a fraction of a second more distance was better than nothing.

“Rob. Put it away.”

Seff’s voice cut through the moment, hard and final. He had recovered now, the shock burned off and replaced with cold control. “Killing her won’t help Telly. It’ll just make everything worse. Breaking the Accord here would ruin us all.”

Rob’s breathing was heavy and uneven, his eyes from underneath his hood burning into me with blind hatred, but he didn’t shoot.

Seff’s eyes met mine through my mask. Whatever trust had been there before was gone, stripped clean. “What do you want?”

I didn’t waste a moment. “You forfeit the Incursion Boss loot. All of it. If you do, I’ll heal Telly as best I can, take what I want, and leave. Immediately.”

I could hear Rob grinding his teeth, the sound sharp and ugly, before he finally lowered the bow with shaking hands.

Seff spat onto the pavement, anger and disgust plain on his face.

“Fine,” he said hoarsely. “Fucking do it, Villain. Your loot for her life. Just the way you want it.”

I stepped up to Telly right away and said, “Turn around. Neither of you look at us until I’m done, or I stop immediately.”

“You fucking—” Rob snapped, the sound of his bow coming back up behind me, before Seff cut him off. “Rob. Do what she says.”

They both turned around like I ordered, and I quickly pulled out the two Vials—[Blood Coagulant] and [Cure Wounds]. I dumped the [Blood Coagulant] over the right side of her body, pressing and rubbing it in with my massive hands as best I could.

Telly—somehow still awake—groaned in pain. 

I heard Rob shift behind me, then Seff stepped closer to him. I glanced over just long enough to see Seff hook an arm around Rob’s shoulders, keeping him facing away.

‘I’m a fucking monster,’ I thought over and over as I worked. ‘Extorting good people for loot… even if I need it. This is grim, Triss. Sadie would hate you for this…’

I shoved the thought aside and focused. 

I spread the [Blood Coagulant] as thoroughly as I could, but it still wasn’t enough. It slowed most of the bleeding—on top of the first aid Rob had already done—but she was still losing more blood than felt survivable.

I looked down at the Vial of [Cure Wounds] in my hand, thinking fast.

‘If I use it from the outside, some of it could spill,’ I realized. With how bad this was, I couldn’t risk losing even a drop.

“Can you swallow this?” I asked, leaning close. “You need to drink all of it, okay?”

To my shock, she actually nodded weakly in reply.

‘How the fuck is she still lucid enough to answer me?’

It was unreal. She’d taken catastrophic injuries and lost liters of blood, yet she was still conscious—still aware enough to understand me and respond.

I uncorked the Vial and carefully tipped it to her mouth, pouring it in slowly. 

She drank all of it. 

It took time, but she signaled when she needed to breathe or cough, not spilling a single drop. I watched as her wounds started closing bit by bit, but after my earlier tests, I knew better than to get hopeful.

It wouldn’t be enough. But that was all I had.

Both Vials were empty, and I hadn’t brought extras.

I patted down my pockets, looking for anything else that might help, until my hand closed around the other [Brawler Mutagen] injector.

I froze.

‘Using this here could blow my cover as just a Brawler-type… and that would be really, really bad,’ I thought. ‘If they realize I’m actually a Crafter-type—one that can turn into a Brawler-type on demand—they’d never let me leave. Laws be damned.’

But the Mutagen had given me minor self-healing. 

There was a chance it could help Telly too.

Her breathing was shallow now—too shallow.

‘Sadie would help her. No matter what,’ my thoughts whispered back at me. ‘There’s no guarantee they’ll figure you out—but there’s a guarantee Telly dies if you don’t do this. Sadie would never let that happen.’

Helping her could cost me my chance to get Sadie back.

If they figured out what I was—

‘You promised you’d do everything you could to help Telly, Triss,’ I practically heard Sadie’s voice chide me. ‘You’re a lot of things, but not a liar. Not when you make a promise like that. You also promised Iron you’d keep Rob and Telly alive. Breaking both? You’d never do that.’

“Fuck…” I muttered quietly, realizing she was right.

I met Telly’s half-lidded eyes and leaned in close, whispering, “Are you still linked with the other two?”

She nodded weakly.

“No matter what happens,” I said softly, “do not ever tell them—or anyone—about what I’m about to do. It’s to save your life. Don’t let them look this way for the next five minutes, no matter what they hear. I don’t want to have to hurt anyone.”

Our eyes locked through mask and goggles for a long moment. 

Then she nodded again and whispered weakly, “Promise.”

I took a deep breath, pulled out the injector, and drove it straight into Telly’s remaining arm.

I made myself as large as I could, hoping my body would shield Telly while the transformation took hold, just in case Rob and Seff decided not to play by the rules.

I heard her muscles, bones, and skin shift, creak, and crack beneath and behind me, every sound making both of them visibly stiffen and flinch.

They were clearly fighting the urge to turn around, and I kept one hand hovering over Telly’s head—just in case I had to take a hostage.

I didn’t want to, but this was a do-or-die moment.

If they turned around, there would be no way to keep my secret. 

I’d have to kill Telly and somehow get out alive.

I probably wouldn’t make it far. I’d be hunted by Heroes far stronger than these three for murdering a Hero in cold blood and breaking the Emergency Law’s Accord.

But it would be my only option. 

Even if I generously assumed they wouldn’t immediately connect me to the concoctions, they’d still hold me to question where I had gotten them from. Only during the actual fight itself, had I really realized just how insane the power-set I’d gotten from the Convergence actually was.

The fact that all of it worked on others and not just myself made my Powers deeply problematic in the eyes of any Hero with even half a brain.

Individually, nothing I had access to was powerful enough to justify that fear, sure—but taken together, and paired with the fact that I was a Crafter-type who could stockpile my Powers for a technically infinite amount of time…?

There was no other option for me, than to keep this a secret at all costs.

The next five minutes crawled by in brutal slowness, like the universe itself was messing with time. After the first few seconds, Telly’s body stopped making noise entirely—which almost made Seff and Rob turn around, but both of them froze at the exact same moment.

‘Good work, Telly,’ I thought, recognizing it for what it probably was: Her telling them not to turn via their link. That she was okay—or as okay as she could be.

I used the brief reprieve to check on her.

Much to my frustration, she hadn’t inherited the same Brawler traits as I had. She hadn’t grown much—just gotten more muscular in the same shape—and her wounds weren’t visibly healing.

Still, the Mutagen had at least sealed all the major bleeds as part of the remodeling. 

Mission accomplished, as far as I was concerned.

‘Note to self: You need to test whether the [Brawler Mutagen] gives you this exact same body next time—including the Minor Affinity,’ I earmarked as extremely important for later. ‘If the Mutagen changes every use, I can’t rely on it to build a second persona.’

The remaining minutes passed without incident, until, finally, the five were up—and the creaking and shifting started again.

This time, Seff and Rob seemed a lot more at ease, even if they still flinched at the sounds. Telly, though, looked noticeably better than before—so she was likely giving them live updates to keep them calm.

When the creaking and shifting finally stopped beneath me, I pulled my hand away from Telly’s face—only to be met by a grateful smile looking up at me.

I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Thank you, Nica,” she said weakly—but the genuineness in her words could not be overstated—and that, finally broke me.

I stood up at once and stomped away from her, heading toward the Brute’s body and passing Rob and Seff without a word. They seemed to take it as permission to turn, both rushing to Telly’s side immediately.

I struggled to control my strength as I walked, spiderweb cracks forming beneath each step. Anger radiated off me—anger at what I had done.

At what the situation had forced me to become.

Would Seff have given me the fragment if I had just explained everything—that I really, really needed it? Especially if I had helped Telly without all of this?

‘There’s definitely a decent chance he would have. So… Maybe,’ I admitted.

But maybe wasn’t good enough when it came to getting Sadie back.

There had been a very real chance he’d stick to the agreed loot split—and by that measure, I never would have gotten the fragment. 

Legally, he’d be right, and I’d be completely out of options by then.

Running that thought through my head again and again only made the anger worse—anger turned inward, burning hot against myself.

Luckily, it didn’t take long to reach the body, and I finally had something to vent my anger on. I tore into the massive corpse with rabid abandon, pulling, shoving, and ripping flesh, bone, and muscle away until the fragment was fully exposed.

It was just as I’d expected—about the size of a normal human fist, not my current one—and completely covered in shifting script. The same kind of writing I’d seen inside my vision.

The pull from my Power finally faded to nothing as I closed my hand around the fragment, and for a brief moment, a spark of hope pushed back against the anger still burning in my chest.

‘First step toward getting Sadie back…’

Not wanting to test my luck with more Heroes showing up, I quickly retreated down the street I’d come from—away from the burning buildings that had caught fire was a result of the Brute throwing the burning remains of his Vyre towels behind him—ducking back into the alley to retrieve my trench coat from the dumpster.

It was still there, thankfully unharmed.

My other clothes had survived surprisingly well, aside from a few massive holes where Grunts had gotten through and one long gash where a Scyther had nearly disemboweled me during the fighting earlier.

The trench coat covered all of it just fine, so I pulled it on and kept moving.

I had just turned to head for the nearest bus station to make my way back home when I remembered another promise I’d made that very same night—one I still had to follow up on.

“Haaa… fuck past-me and her stupid decisions,” I sighed, then turned around and headed through the alley toward the nearest police station.

It didn’t take long to get there, but I had to crouch and nearly crawl to squeeze my body inside, which immediately sent the five officers in the foyer into a panic as my half-masked, massive frame forced its way in.

There was nobody else around—which made sense after the Vyre alarm—but all five of them looked absolutely terrified.

“Ehh… hi. Vigilante here,” I said, keeping my tone as calm and friendly as I could—which was kind of difficult given my extremely deep, gravelly voice. “I just helped deal with the Vyre Incursion—it’s handled, by the way. Hero reinforcements should be on-site already, giving the all-clear any second now. Anyway, I’m just here to ask if a certain criminal came in about… ten, fifteen minutes ago? Guy had a pretty nasty fall and said he was going to turn himself in?”

I did my best to sound cooperative, mostly to keep them from shooting me in the face. 

I was fairly sure I wasn’t bulletproof.

A long, silent few seconds passed before the one who seemed in charge—short brown buzzcut, ugly scar down the right side of his face—finally spoke. 

“Nobody’s come in here for the past hour.”

I rolled my eyes behind the mask.

‘Of fucking course he didn’t listen to me…’

“Alright. Thanks,” I said, backing out of the cramped foyer.

“Hey, wait!” the officer shouted after me. “You can’t just leave! How do we know you’re not just a Villain lying to us?!”

I ignored him. 

I was already halfway out of the building by the time he thought to question it, and I took off immediately, my massive body carrying me away from the station far faster than any of them could chase me down or get out of the foyer and raise a weapon in time.

I returned to the alley where I’d last seen the wannabe rapist—

‘Wait. He’s probably an actual rapist. No chance I caught him on his very first crime,’ I realized halfway through the thought.

Either way, I went back to where I’d smashed him into the wall and pulled out my phone, turning on the flashlight.

‘Let’s hope he’s as stupid as he looks for not following my warning…’

I moved slowly through the alley, following the still-glistening drops of blood he’d left behind, trying to piece together where he might have gone.

There was no chance he’d gone to a hospital. He would’ve had to explain what happened to him—and there was no way he could’ve made it there before the Vyre Incursion broke out anyway.

‘He wouldn’t risk the open streets with Vyres around. No way.’

That meant he either ducked into a nearby shelter or found some place to hide until the Vyre all-clear went out over the sirens—which still hadn’t happened.

So he had to be close. I just needed to find him fast.

It took less than five minutes to follow the messy trail he’d left behind. Blood and mud from his boots tracked all the way out of the alley, making it painfully easy to follow, until I reached the back door of a nearby store.

The door was kicked clean in—muddy bootprints very visible on the thing.

‘Looks like we’re adding breaking and entering to the list,’ I thought, a predatory grin curling under my mask as I pushed the door open.

I didn’t even have to crouch or squeeze my way inside.

He was right there, only a few steps in, frozen in place. His eyes went wide with pure terror the moment he saw me in the doorway, my shadow filling the frame.

“Fancy to meet you here,” I said lightly.

I reached out, grabbed him, and ripped him straight out of the building like he weighed nothing. He screamed immediately, babbling about Vyre, about being scared, about not meaning anything by it. 

I squeezed my hand just a little tighter, enough to force the air out of his lungs, and the noise cut off into a weak, choking wheeze.

“We’re going to the police now,” I said flatly. “So be quiet.”

I turned and started toward the station.

Then the sirens started up again—but different this time. The long, rising wail of the Vyre All-Clear rolled through the streets, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

The sound hit me wrong. Not in any particular way, but it was like a lightning strike coursing through my body, as I realized something.

‘I can’t bring him in.’

There were no witnesses. The woman I’d saved was long gone, and I’d never find her again. It would be my word against his: Villain versus criminal. And he was already badly hurt by a Powered individual, no matter how badly I wanted to sell the whole “he fell” story to the officers.

At best, he’d spend a night in a cell.

Then he’d walk.

I couldn’t even pursue anything after that.

“Nica” would disappear in a few hours, and I had no idea if the next [Brawler Mutagen] would even give me the same body again. 

There was no later. No follow-up. No way to make this stick at all.

I looked down at him as he struggled weakly in my grip, whimpering in pain from everything I’d already done to him tonight.

‘Legally… I can’t do anything here,’ I thought, my chest tight. ‘I need to take him to the station—even knowing it won’t lead to anything.’

The conflict churned inside me as I stood there, frozen in the quiet street.

I just stood there for several long minutes, the street quiet around me, the All-Clear still echoing in the distance. 

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe much, either. I just thought.

About everything that had happened. About how none of it had been random. 

Every step, every choice, every conversation—it had all, ultimately, led right here, hadn’t it? 

Every talk Sadie and I had ever had about what we’d do if we had Powers. The moment I had known that I’d have to do terrible things to bring her back and promised myself “no matter the cost”. The fact that I’d already betrayed Heroes—the very kind that Sadie and I had always lauded as the “good” and “proper” kind—for that very reason.

There was no pretending anymore, was there?

“I am a Villain,” I mouthed quietly, as realization settled over me.

And Villains didn’t play by the law. 

They played by whatever rules they could bend, twist, or break to get what they wanted. 

I wasn’t a Hero. I never would be. 

Heroes protected the status quo and called it “justice” as long as it followed some written-down laws, even if it never helped the majority of people suffering.

I sighed heavily, then closed my hand.

There was barely any resistance. 

His life ended in an instant, messy and final, my grip reducing him to nothing meaningful in a heartbeat. I had expected to feel something—revulsion, some guilt… maybe even horror.

But I felt nothing.

‘This is justice.’

Not the kind written down in lawbooks, but the kind only the truly powerful could enforce—and most chose not to. 

The justice of a Villain.

I finished what I started, compressing what was left down as far as I could. 

I had promised him something small enough to fit on a credit chit, and I always kept my promises. It took more effort than I liked, but I somehow managed in the end—as messy as it all was.

I dumped the remains into the nearest trash, then moved fast, not looking back. 

I used every last bit of [Universal Solvent] I had, scrubbing my hands and clothes clean of blood and anything else that might give me away.

Then I was gone, melting back into the city like none of it had ever happened…

—

Hours later, after my [Brawler Mutagen] had finally run out, I had turned my trenchcoat inside-out and taken off my pullover and mask—becoming Triss again. I even ditched my shredded jeans and stuffed them into the pullover, just in case someone caught a glimpse of the torn fabric underneath despite my best efforts.

Evidently, it had been enough as I made it back home without incident.

I dumped all the clothes in my room, deciding I’d deal with them tomorrow.

What I did not put off until morning, however, was the tablet.

I pulled out the fragment I had risked everything for tonight and placed it on my desk. 

It was perfectly smooth, despite having been struck by a full-power swing from Iron that had nearly bisected a Brute—once again lending weight to the idea I had read on the internet, that these things might actually be indestructible.

“Alright, Power,” I murmured, staring at the shifting script for several long seconds. “What do I do with this…?”

As if that was all it had been waiting for, my mind was flooded with words and symbols that made no sense—an entire language that didn’t exist, crammed into a fraction of a second.

The next moment, the fragment in my hands was simply gone.

I panicked—then froze.

I could still see it.

Not physically, but inside my head. Perfectly.

I could rotate it, inspect it, view every angle, like the cleanest 3D scan imaginable.

“Okay…?”

I still had no idea what to do with that.

So I did the only thing I could. 

I opened my notebook to the last page I’d written on and prompted my Power again.

“What now?”

The words flowed without me thinking about them.

When I stopped, I realized several things.

First, the previous Quest had been crossed out and replaced.

“Obtain one of the scattered pieces of the Tabula Smaragdina.”

“Obtain enough scattered pieces of the Tabula Smaragdina to reconstitute all of Page 1: Prima Materia (14% Completed)”

Second—and somehow even more surprising—I had apparently added new entries to my Formulae List.

[======= Tier 1 Formulae =======]
[Blood Coagulant]
[Alchemist’s Fire]
[Acidic Fluid]
[Cure Wounds]
[Adhesive Liquid]
[Grease]
[Universal Solvent]
[Comprehend Languages]
[Shield]
[Wizened Appearance]
[Youthful Appearance]
[Ant Haul]*
[Blend]*
[Bouncy Body]*
[Jump]*

Third, I also realized that the number of Vials I could produce had increased by about twenty percent—from ten to twelve. My Bombs and Mutagens, however, had unfortunately not received any such boost.

I stared at the notebook for a few minutes, trying to wrap my head around everything that had happened today, and just now.

Finally, I took a slow, steady breath.

“First step done… I’m going to get you back, Sadie. Just wait a little longer,” I whispered as I stood up and started getting ready for bed. “Whatever this Prima Materia is, I’ll figure it out. Then I’ll get you back. That’s a promise, you hear me?”

It was going to be a long road—and an unbelievably hard one.

I’d have to keep up with my studies, keep my Triss persona in good standing and off of everybody’s radar. Figure out if I could bring the Nica persona back with the [Brawler Mutagen], test the other two Mutagens, and work through the rest of the Formulae I hadn’t tried yet. 

Then I’d need to make a lot of credits to buy up all the fragments I could—which shouldn’t be too hard, given my Power-set—but somehow do so anonymously or risk my Triss persona being burnt. Finally, I’d have to find all the other parts of the Emerald Tablet, until my Power showed me the full path to bring Sadie back—whatever that would entail.

It sounded overwhelming when I thought about it all at once like this...

But at least I had a path forward. A way to get Sadie back, no matter the cost.

And I would manage it.

Because I always kept my promises.

=======

=======

=======

Sadie’s Diary Entry:

“I’ve done it! I finally got it! Well…Probably.

But it’s a really, really good one, and Triss absolutely hates it!

Which, honestly, is how I know it’s perfect.

Been hunting for the right nickname for her forever now, right? Like, forever forever. Years. 

A whole heroic quest of trial and error, dragons and all that jazz.

Bounced between a literal mountain of options in these years—cute ones, dumb ones, overly sincere ones—but none of them really landed. They either slid right off her or got that flat little look she does when she’s unimpressed but too indignant to even say it out loud.

And then it happened. The moment.

The stars aligned. The universe whispered in my ear. The damn Convergence itself pointed dramatically and went, “That one. Do that one.”

Princess.

God, she hates it. So thoroughly and utterly, it is like the sweetest ambrosia to my soul!

And that’s the absolute best part.

I’m in Lefaye for a second in my head now, let me remind you of this moment—back at the Nova Terrae Seaside Festival, when we went together. 

We had gone for the lights and the stalls and the ocean breeze, and because Triss pretends she doesn’t like crowded events but absolutely does as long as she can complain about them to me while we’re there—and several days afterwards. 

I had won that raffle, right? Somehow—actual divine intervention, probably, to allow me to find the nickname—and the prize was this absurdly expensive King Crab Gratin. 

Like, stupidly priced. Like, “this better change my life” expensive.

I had taken exactly one bite.

One.

Because Triss, being Triss, wanted to “at least try” and had Opinions™, despite not liking any seafood ever made.

Opinions about the seasoning. About the texture. About how it could have been better if they had just done this one tiny thing differently—as if she’d know, considering the last seafood item she ate without spitting it right out was probably that one time her mum made her eat a tiny piece of fish when she was like 12? 

But then—somewhere between the nitpicking and the analyzing and the “I’ll just try a little more, can’t really nail it down”—she ate the whole damn rest of it.

The whole thing!. Of my prize. That I won.

And she didn’t even notice until I stared at the empty dish like I had just watched her commit murder in broad daylight.

That’s when it clicked… Remember the moment, future Sadie.

I know you will be able to conjure it up like you’re right there. 

When the divine inspiration hit your brain in just the right way…

Because, after everything, Triss hadn’t eaten all of it to be mean. She never does—never would be mean to me. She did it because she just… assumed it would be fine. 

Like it was hers. Like of course she could just take it. 

Like the world would naturally bend around her preferences if she just believed it enough.

Princess behavior.

And the second I called her that—just casually, just testing it—she bristled. 

Full-body reaction. Scowling. Correcting me right away. 

Doing that tight little jaw thing like she was offended on a fundamentally philosophical level.

Bing-fucking-o.

Because here’s the secret: Deep, deep down, Triss wants to be a princess. 

Not the frilly kind, obviously. 

More like the tragic, distant, slightly unapproachable kind with standards and expectations and a whole internal code of conduct. 

She wants the dignity. The recognition. The right to be picky without consequences.

And she absolutely hates that I know that.

She gets all tsundere about it, which is honestly unfair because it’s so damn cute it should be illegal—probably is, but we haven’t covered the law yet, I’m assuming. 

Every time I lean into it—and especially when I break out the old-timey English—she just can’t help herself. 

She corrects me on it. Immediately. Before she can stop herself. 

Which just lets me double down even harder.

“Milady.”
“Sadie, that’s not how—”
“Ah, forgive me, Princess, this lowly peasant knows not the refined ways of court.”

It’s flawless. 10/10 brilliance. No notes.

I can already tell she’s started plotting revenge, too. 

I see it in her eyes every time she looks at me. 

She’s absolutely fiending for something equally devastating to call me, and I will have to stay sharp. 

But until she figures it out? I’m winning. Completely. Utterly. No contest.

I don’t even remember when this stupid nickname war started… Probably sometime in elementary school. Or maybe it just… always existed between us. Like gravity.

Anyway.

She’s coming over tomorrow. 

Movie night. Studying for exams. Blankey. Trashy films, the whole thing. 

I’m really looking forward to it.

Especially because I get to smile sweetly, hand her a drink, and say—

“Here is thine drink, Princess.”

And watch her try so hard not to correct me or react…

—

[Sadie’s Diary, 2033]

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Thank you for reading the final chapter of the Tabula Smaragdina Reading Samples!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first arc (Prologue + Debut).

If you did (or if you didn’t!), please provide me with some feedback on what parts you did/didn’t enjoy especially. I’m particularly looking for these types of feedbacks:

1. What did you dislike, specifically?

2. What did you REALLY like (not just a “that was cool” but a “this would absolutely make me read the story, even if almost nothing else was present” kind of deal)

3. Would you be interested in reading this story as a full novel, with several Volumes following Triss’ journey of Villain/Vigilante/Hero-hood to bring Sadie back? If not, why not (refer to 1.)?

Please leave feedback in the Discord’s specifically Thread for it!

You can find it under the #other-novels channel, specifically in the “Put Feedback for TS in here” thread, which is pinned in that channel.

Thank you for reading!

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