Another cock of the hammer. Another can. The subtle anvil-clang of the hammer striking the ignition glyph, the violent thoom that accompanied the blazing lance of hot lead. A disgusting splurge as the can’s contents splashed over the dry soil.

One more shot, seemingly just for good measure, obliterated the old helmet.

She heard an ecstatic laugh bubbling up from Zef as the blonde turned the gun over in her grip, cocked the hammer to turn the cylinder, and quickly checked for any residue in the fired chamber. 

“Tha-ha-hat’s not how rifle cartridges usually fire!” she laughed, equally bewildered and amazed by the revolver’s performance. “There’s way less recoil than usual and no vision-obscuring cloud, this thing must have some sorta kinetic redirection glyphs inside the barrel!”

Zelsys didn’t have the context to understand most of what Zefaris was saying, but she guessed, “You think it makes sure the force goes where it’s most useful like the harness my cannon’s attached to?”

“I-I think so, at least. I’ve only got a rudimentary understanding of glyphs in ballist…” she began to trail off, reloading the three fired chambers as she went.

The gut feeling. It was back. While Zefaris trailed off on a tangent about the application of glyphs in the design of firearms, Zelsys felt the nameless voice in the back of her head screaming about danger from the fields by the left side of the road. She felt a vague hostility from within the corn, unsure how many people, but certain it was more than one. The wind briefly picked up, and amidst the rustling of dry leaves, she could pick out a few words uttered in the unfamiliar tongue spoken by the Pateirian soldiers.

Like clockwork a familiar face stepped out of the corn stalks only moments later, holding a sparklock pistol in either hand. It was one of the soldiers she’d seen hassling the street performer earlier that day, only he wasn’t wearing his military coat. In fact, he wasn’t wearing anything above the waist, and the state of his body perhaps explained part of it - the soldier’s entire upper body up to the neckline was covered in dark-brown chitinous plating, with thick spiky hairs protruding from the plates at regular intervals.

His eyes flitted from Zefaris, to her gun, to Zelsys and her own arm-cannon, confusion and annoyance filling his features. His upper lip twitched just before he barked out in heavily accented Ikesian, “Your money or your lives, both of you! Only the farmers who pay us tolls are permitted to pass this way.”

Zelsys couldn’t help it. She let out a chortling laugh at the farcical situation, at the utter cosmic convenience of it all, that one of her intended targets had come straight to her. Sure, he had them both at gunpoint, but what did she care? His movements were obvious and telegraphed. She was confident that she could end him before he could land a solid hit, and that Zefaris could read his body language just as well as if not better than her.

“Don’t fuck with me, filthy Ike-lover!” he chided her lack of respect, aggressively pointing both his sparklocks at her head. This was a show. She knew it. Zelsys could feel the four other people spreading out through the corn, likely preparing to charge out and kill them both. She could also feel Zef’s killing intent towards the mutant, and in a split-second, she formulated a plan.

“You can’t blame me for a little Lover’s Breath!” she exclaimed, inhaling sharply. A mixture of hyper-awareness and battle-lust flooded the senses, and she shifted out of the way in the moment between when he pulled the triggers and the powder ignited, his guns spitting sparks wildly for a good tenth of a second before they fired. Hot lead whizzing behind her she sprinted towards the corn field, momentarily turning her head as she went to breathe some Fog directly into Zef’s face. She had no way to know this would have a positive impact on the markswoman’s combat capabilities, but as many times before, she just listened to what felt right in the moment.

Leaving the pistol-wielding assailant to her lover Zelsys dove into the cornfield, cleaver in hand and trailing Fog with every step. She couldn’t see who she assumed to be the bandit’s accomplices, but she could feel them by the movement of the corn and their panicked utterances in Pateirian. The cleaver shuddered in her grasp as she neared one of these, and without so much as a second thought, she swung through the corn and uttered, “Heartbreaker!”

The blade’s course shifted ever so slightly as it guided itself towards its target’s heart. She could hear that the second one was charging her from behind, and so followed through the momentum of her swing to stab the push-saw side directly through his neck, severing its head.

It was at this moment that three clanging gunshots rang out from the road, a first one accompanied by what sounded like cracking wood, then two follow ups in rapid succession accompanied by the squelching of an exploding head. Zel was more than ready to slaughter the remaining two, but they had fled too deeply into the cornfield for her to bother following them.

She let out a breath, let go of her battle-trance, and noticed the rancid smell that filled her nostrils. Then, looking about to get her bearings, she saw who - or rather, what - it was that she had killed. The creature that lay eviscerated amidst the corn was barely comparable to the most extreme photos the Governor had shown her, yellowish ichor spilling from its neck as its arms and legs curled inward. It wasn’t even a mutant human, but rather an outright humanoid locust, grasping an old sparklock with a rusty bayonet on the end. The creature didn’t wear clothes as much as it was draped in a cloak made from the tattered remnants of a coat.

After running the cleaver through this one’s heart to ensure it wouldn’t get back up without its head as some insects were able to, Zelsys didn’t bother to look at the other creature, the rancid stench of its spilt hemolymph more than enough to confirm the killing blow.