Laura sliced through the battlefield with the grace of a ballerina, but the ferocity of a raging monster.

There was no stopping her.

There was no need to.

Laura was simply a force of nature, neither bloody nor angry nor sad nor murderous.

Laura just was… Laura just is.

Sprite had never seen something so beautiful in her entire life.

Blood was pouring like rain, mixing with the illusion of a sandstorm, but somehow, everything remained nuanced in Sprite’s eyes.

Maybe it was the loss of Tyrone that caused this perception change, but at this moment, Sprite let go of her anger for a couple of seconds.

But only a couple of seconds.

Sprite had lived a really long life, and if there is one thing she learned in all that time, it was that nothing lasted forever.

Laura continued her violence, unaware of Sprite’s philosophical struggles.

Everything Laura passed was either gutted, decapitated, or maimed.

Sometimes, all three at once.

There was no end to the blood, the pain, the crying, and overall destruction.

Laura was in her natural element, and every splatter of blood that echoed loudly in her ears just spurred her into a deeper frenzy.

Everything was heightened.

Everything felt both new and old.

Everything needed to be sliced.

Laura dashed forward with speed rivaling a cheetah, and using her established momentum, she leaped into the air, performing a double full aerial twist with feet extended.

---CHING---

---CHING---

The claws on Laura’s feet tore through the soldiers’ armor, killing the men before they were even aware of what had happened.

There was barely a sound as Laura’s claws sliced through the wind.

Unlike Logan’s dull blades, the adamantium in Laura’s body was created from a unique, new, and improved, formula that reduced the weight of the metal, and made for smoother cuts.

Transigen made Laura to kill, and that’s exactly what she was doing.

The battle became so intense, with bullets flying everywhere, that even Logan was forced to fight, raking his claws through soldiers left and right.

Of course, Logan was much slower than his supposed daughter.

Logan sunk his claws down the throat of a nearby soldier, snorting in annoyance when the squirted blood smeared his beard.

Then, using those same claws, Logan maimed another incoming soldier, nailing two men onto his very short, very dull claws.

Sprite had to admit – Logan had weaker claws, but he sure knew how to use it.

Killing two people on the same claw was… impressive.

‘The benefit of experience.’ Sprite thought, once again lamenting the fact that Tyrone did not have the chance to gather such experience.

And thinking about Tyrone enraged Sprite even more.

“FUCK!” Sprite cursed and darted to the next closest soldier.

There was a spurt of blood and another soldier died under mysterious circumstances.

If there was such a thing on a battlefield.

Sprite disappeared once again, and all the nearby soldiers tensed, firing wildly at anything that seemed to be moving in the illusory dust cloud.

The soldiers thought Sprite was a ghost, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In actuality, Sprite was simply jogging from one point to the next while avoiding the soldiers, but to everyone else, it looked as if Sprite had disappeared in a burst of blurry speed.

Illusions worked wonders.

Sprite continued her charade, appearing next to a soldier on the right, golden lines snaking around her small frame.

With a quick flick of her fingers, Sprite snatched the head of a soldier directly from his shoulders.

Her Cosmic Energy took a steep dip with that move, but Sprite always worked by the same strategy – kill the few brutally to discourage the many.

---POP---

Sprite felt a bullet graze her arm, and instantly, her eyes zeroed in on the soldier responsible for such an unforgivable offense.

This specific solder was younger than the rest, but that brought him no mercy from the Eternal who sacred children to sleep with her stories of terrors.

Sprite cranked back the hand holding the head and took aim at the young soldier.

Everything happened in the span of two seconds.

Sprite tossed the head with all her might, and before the soldier could react, his head shattered like a watermelon greeted by a sledgehammer.

Sprite had burst two heads for the price of one.

It was an amazing achievement, but she was in no mood to gloat.

The soldiers that witnessed Sprite’s ‘miracle’ were terrified, but that only made them fight harder.

Everything was mayhem and anger.

It was no longer about survival or victory.

This battle had become like every relationship that ever turned sour – hurt you more than you can hurt me.

And Sprite wanted to hurt everyone.

Maybe, even herself.

Laura was happily dishing out the punishment on Sprite’s and Tyrone’s behalf.

Sure, Laura was angry, but Sprite was… definitely something else.

Something more terrifying.

Laura couldn’t care less about Sprite’s mental state, since Laura was at an all-time high, slashing whatever came into range.

Bullets tore through Laura’s body like a sieve, but she always healed in a matter of seconds.

However, just because Laura could take the damage didn’t mean Logan was willing to watch his daughter being riddled with bullets.

Logan jumped into the fray, slicing the kneecaps of Laura’s closest attackers.

Nothing was spared in the wake of the father-daughter combined slaughter.

Seeing the amount of damage Logan and Laura were dishing out, Sprite decided to conserve her cosmic energy and instead rely on her physical prowess.

With a quick illusion to cloak her presence, Sprite snuck behind a soldier and grabbed the man by the feet, raising him into the air, and smashing him against the ground.

It took all of Sprite’s strength to accomplish such a feat.

Witnessing a new level of Sprite’s brutality, a group of soldiers decided to run away.

The soldiers spun around and darted, running with all the strength in their legs.

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

One after the next, the soldiers rammed headfirst into a wall or impaled themselves on the pikes of a tractor.

All the soldiers had unconsciously committed suicide.

Sprite had cloaked the nearby wall and machinery in an indistinguishable layer of illusions.

That was the terror of the Eternal of Illusions – Sprite could get anyone to go anywhere without ever getting her hands dirty.

The number of humans who had abruptly committed suicide over the eons was incalculable, and a large part of that was Sprite’s fault.

“GAWR!” Laura yelled, declaring her animalistic anger for all lesser animals to know.

Even Sprite was growing a bit concerned at this time.

The way Sprite saw it, this battle would not end in their favor.

They could kill all the soldiers, but there would always be more.

Sprite knew that victory would not come by winning, but by denying Pierce and his goons what they wanted the most, what they came all this way for – Laura.

But, Laura, the person in question, had no interest in stopping the slaughter.

Bullets tore through Laura’s body, but this time, she didn’t feel the need to wait until her healing factor naturally ejected the bullets.

It was, of course, painful to feel bullets moving under her skin, trying to find an exit when she healed too fast.

So, Laura had no problem saving herself the agonizing pain.

Laura ruthlessly used her claws to dig the bullets out of her stomach and lower thigh, tearing chunks of flesh due to the abrupt nature of her surgery.

It was painful, but when had Laura not been in pain.

Luckily, the severe wounds and missing flesh healed just as fast as Laura’s previous wounds.

Within a couple of seconds.

Sadly, as soon as the bullets were cut out and Laura was completely healed, several spearguns were instantly aimed in her direction, shooting through her limbs before she could even blink.

This was a carefully thought-out plan, and it came as no surprise to Sprite that Pierce was the one barking all the instructions behind the scenes.

Laura's arms and legs were penetrated, restraining her thoroughly.

The cables attached to the spears were thin but very strong, and the soldiers tugged on the cable constantly, always throwing Laura over the place to ensure she couldn’t steady herself enough to cut the cables.

However, the soldiers forgot to take Logan into account.

Logan’s claws raked across the ground, dashing between Laura and her captors, severing the cable keeping his daughter restrained.

The moment she was free, Laura launched herself from the ground, wrapping her legs around Logan’s body to create more momentum.

Logan bent his neck on instinct, barely avoiding Laura’s foot claws, but he was experienced enough to know what his daughter was aiming for, so he gave her a little push.

Logan swung his body with Laura’s momentum, tossing his daughter through the air.

Laura soared through the air, claws forward, aiming for Pierce’s chest.

But Pierce was not a survivor for nothing.

Pierce instantly decided that he wanted to live no matter the cost, so he had little problem shoving two soldiers in front of himself, leaving them to the mercy of Laura’s claws while he escaped into a car.

As soon as Laura was sure that she had missed, she dug her claws into the ground, and spun on her head like a top, extending her legs to slice through whoever came close.

It took a couple of spins until all the soldiers fell.

“Fuck you!” A soldier yelled, arms raised to toss a grenade that had the pin pulled.

Laura and Logan retracted their claws, ready to catch the grenade and toss it back.

They had done it a thousand times before.

Logan was a veteran of at least four wars, and Laura had been taught how to work a grenade since she was three.

Both father and daughter were perfectly capable of killing the soldier themselves, but that was the moment when an unexpected third party decided to intervene, ruining everything.

The soldier holding the grenade abruptly froze moments before he could toss the grenade.

Charles, from inside the limo, had his fingers pressed against his temple, struggling to keep the mind of the soldier suspended in the astral plane.

It was a noble endeavor, but Charles’ intervention made everything worse.

The grenade fell out of the soldier’s hand and rolled onto the ground.

Laura leaped towards the grenade, while Logan leaped away, and Sprite appeared abruptly, attempting to sneak behind the soldier and snatch the grenade.

Everything went to shit in one moment.

---BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM---

Everyone was tossed aside.

Sprite was closest to the impact, so she was tossed the furthest, banging her head against the nearby wall.

Logan and Laura smashed into the ground, just a bit away from the wall; though, they were incredibly disoriented.

Still, it was nothing their healing factors could not resolve.

Sadly, if Logan and Laura were disorientated by the explosion, then Sprite as an Eternal was bound to be much worse, especially since her primary talent was not healing.

And even as tough as she was, Sprite was not invincible.

The moment her head impacted the wall with enough force to bend steel, Sprite’s cosmic energy was roused into action, unfurling her fairy wings to stir the wind a bit, negating some of the damage.

But that was not enough.

Logan and Laura were on their feet, clearheaded, a couple of seconds after the explosion, but Sprite took a bit longer.

It took almost a minute for Sprite to rise to her feet, and even then, anyone could feel something was different.

Everyone could see something was different.

The illusions Sprite had been maintaining since the start of the battle were glitching – flashing in and out of existence.

Nobody had any idea how many illusions Sprite had created at the start of the battle, but when the glitches started, everyone was appalled to see just how much of Sprite’s illusion was cloaking the carnage of the battlefield.

Some soldiers even turned the gun to their own heads and fired.

The soldiers were now aware that for a majority of the battle, they had been torturing and killing their own comrades.

Pierce realized that he wasn’t hiding in a car, but on a rock, clutching a rattlesnake in his hands as if it was the steering wheel.

Logan realized that his healing factor was working much slower.

Laura realized that she was slowly cutting down soldiers on her way to murder Charles.

The only person in the area that wasn’t affected by some sort of illusion was Caliban, and that was because Sprite needed him to find Tyrone at the moment.

Even if it was just Tyrone’s body, Sprite would be satisfied with that much.

Everyone froze, unaware if what they were witnessing was real or fake at this time.

Sprite’s illusions glitched, each time showing a different version of reality – a different version of Sprite’s imagination.

“Fuck. Stop shaking!” Sprite yelled, smashing her fist into her head a dozen times or so.

But the illusions didn’t stop shifting.

Compared to the illusions fritzing outside, Sprite’s mind was even more chaotic.

Sprite was seeing Tyrone.

Her own mind was playing tricks on her, and the worse part was that Sprite was starting to believe those tricks.

It was one thing for Sprite’s mind to play tricks, it was much more dangerous for the Eternal to believe her own tricks.

It happened once before, and it cost all the Eternals their memories.

Just as Sprite was about to reach for Tyrone inside her mind, everything froze and dissipated.

Sprite’s Cosmic Energy took a dive off the deep end, and all the illusions, in her mind and otherwise, disappeared from the world.

Logan, Laura, Pierce, Charles, and all the soldiers finally saw the world as it was – chaotic, but understandable.

“He~He~He…” Sprite chuckled nervously, marching to the center of the bloody, body-ridden, field “How about we stop this bloody war? How about a truce?”