The thunderous boom reached even the ears of General Aegis of Apollo as he stomped his aged boots down upon the mountain pass.

Beneath him, in the flatland just below, marched an army from the City of Apollo, his home.

The vast majority of these men were archers, with daggers at their hips in case the need for them arose.

The old general felt the earth tremble beneath his feet.

His eyes turned to face the mountain range that spanned all of Muspelheim's northern central region.

He felt a rumble pass by overhead, he knew nothing of its nature.

His eyes opened wide as he realised that the tops of each mountain in his sight had been cut off and rendered flat.

The great mountains were effectively made headless by that invisible force, they looked as if a titanic blade had swept through them.

He tried to chase the thought from his mind several dozen times, yet in the end he could only accept the truth of it.

The volcano that lay at the very heart of the mountainous region could not have done this, something had changed the terrain in a decidedly unnatural manner.

He turned to face the man at his side, his lieutenant since the olden times.

Even that wise old man could only offer him a shrug of disbelief.

Neither of them had any idea what could’ve done that.

“Tell me my old eyes are not playing tricks on me, at least,” Said the old general.

“I wish I could, my lord,” Said the Lieutenant in return.

They were silent for a time, and the army stopped their march.

One by one they heard the rumbling, one by one they stopped and stared at the mountains that had lost their peaks.

The old general turned his head to face the east, where the resounding shockwave had escaped off into the distance.

He saw a bird flying low, panic clear in the flapping of its wings.

The creature fell onto the ground and landed on its back.

Such scenes repeated themselves for miles out, the skies became eerily clear of clouds and creatures both.

The old general recognised the bird, a message was tied to its ankle, a message he moved to receive.

“What does it say?” The lieutenant inquired.

“What indeed,” Said the old general. After that, before he could even be alarmed, the Lieutenant's body stiffened.

Ash covered the land, it washed over the bodies of each and every man.

“What indeed,” Said the old general again as he faced the Lieutenant with the coldest stare.

The lieutenant cast a frown, he knew he’d been discovered.

Powerful Ash erupted from his body and shattered the restraints that Aegis had enforced upon him.

Platinum Class Ash, a power none of Aegis’ men, not even his own son, should possess, rushed forth from his body.

The old general glared towards the imposter, a membrane of Ash erupted from his coil, followed by another, and then yet another still.

They struck the Knight of Cain one by one and forced him to stumble back.

Clouds formed in the heavens above, the Knight was trying to fly away, a sight that Aegis had seen several times.

The old general readied his bow, a powerful force gathered as he pulled back the string.

The knight took flight, just as predicted, and then the general opened fire.

Just before the arrow was unleashed, he turned to aim it higher.

The Knight was pierced through the chest, a massive hole opened up as he bid to dodge skyward.

The knight fell towards the general, who formed a sword to cut off his head as he slammed into the ground.

The old general, Aegis of Apollo, sighed and shook his head.

He wondered what had happened to the real Lieutenant, once a trusted friend.

He shook his head and looked towards the letter in his hand, a note from Rusalka that was marked with Jupiter’s seal.

“That girl...she’d make her mother proud,” He said, and so again he turned to face the mountains.

There was no dust nor avalanche, the cut was too clean, too practiced.

When he cut off the head of that knight just now, it was a perfect analogy.

That cut was just as clean.

“No,” He whispered, “it couldn’t be...it couldn’t be.”

He just could not believe it, he refused to believe it, the very idea was ridiculous...and yet.

The man shook his head, he kept staring at the mountains with a lost and dazed expression.

His men were no different.

They looked upon their leader strangely.

They had seen it all from start to finish, from the knight revealing his true identity to his head being severed by a blade, but they still could not believe it.

Everyone stood in a daze, and it was some time before their march could continue on.

________________________________________________

When she observed the landscape all about her, there was no dust, no smoke, no evidence of what had happened.

Even the mountain wind was eerily gone as the ,ale Einherjar stared alone and in silence upon the centre of the crater.

The surrounding peaks had all been rendered headless by the power of “their” blade.

“Such power,” She, the Tyrfing, muttered in her horror.

Yet this display of power did not surprise the man himself one whit.

She was forced to appreciate the power of the Gods, even the lowliest of Lesser Gods, the servile Einherjar, all over again.

He turned to face her.

The swarm of Fay, now white as starlight, formed a storm around him.

She wanted to hide herself away, but she couldn’t even move.

Her body wasn’t fit to move, because she was a trident, Rudolph’s weapon, that was her current form.

“I know you’re there,” He said to her.

She cowered then, but he did not approach her.

He sighed and waited for her.

From his perspective, she was an object at a glance, an unmoving weapon wielded by his fallen foe, yet he could sense the life inside of her, he could see she was a thinking and feeling entity, immature perhaps, but learning rapidly under what had until now been Rudolph’s tutelage.

He could not help but recognise that this entity was quite similar to his severed other half, yet while Rudolph had taken her in he had rejected everything that forged his counterpart.

The thought irked him, one of his many regrets.

He looked around at the scene of carnage.

His other half was long gone and the landscape had been forever changed by the mere unsheathing of their blade.

He glanced back then as the pitch black aura congealed into a shape above the trident.

That shape was of a girl, not a woman as her avatars before, but a child that was very likely to be representative of her mental age.

She looked at him with dread, he could tell she never would have shown herself if it hadn’t been clear he wasn’t going to leave if she didn’t.

“I’ll be borrowing your master for a bit,” He told her.

She responded with silence, then stared at him with nervous eyes.

“Does that mean...he’s still alive?” She asked.

The Einherjar took pause, he pressed a palm to his chest and inspected his current body of flesh.

Tyrfing survived because her Trident had cut itself off from the rest of her avatars and even Rudolph’s own body.

Call her a coward if you will, she just didn’t want to die.

The man himself would not blame her for it.

The Einherjar found no trace of Rudolph’s will, he didn’t expect to, that was until he reached the Beacon in his core.

He frowned then as that Beacon forced him back, and he saw Rudolph’s visage slumbering within.

He cracked a smile, he laughed, and he startled the Tyrfing in turn.

“Very sly, human, very sly,” He said.

He recalled then that his other half had failed to possess this man, now he knew why, and Rudolph too was like to have already figured it out after that first attempt had failed.

The Einherjar looked into the sky.

He followed his counterpart’s aura as best he could and turned away from the young shadow of a girl.

“He’s alive,” He told her, and so the Tyrfing's eyes opened wide.

She looked up toward the flying fairies on high, her former bodies followed him as he bid to leave this place.

“Alive...you say...he’s alive?” The man paused his steps.

He looked upon her form, lost and unmoving, and then pondered something in silence.

He approached her then and she trembled in terror as he seized her trident form.

He looked towards it as she shivered, too frightened even to beg.

The man looked towards her, then let loose a tired sigh.

“When you first met this man, all you wanted was the right to live your life...the right to exist.”

She didn’t wonder how he knew; he’d seized Rudolph’s body, and that would surely include the man’s brain as well.

She nodded her head, she did not dare to lie.

The man watched her reaction for a time, and then he closed his eyes.

He could’ve destroyed her easily, she feared this, but why would he?

Instead he pierced her trident tips into the ground.

“There’s a reason why this temple was built here,” He said, “the soil is rich with Ash.”

She did not doubt his words, she could all but taste it from the moment she'd arrived.

Branches began to spawn on her trident form, roots began to grow as well.

He turned his back and let her grow.

His eyes were firm upon the distant horizon, there where his other half trod fleet of foot down the mountain pass.

Tyrfing watched him as he took his leave.

He left her alive...and also free.

Once she recovered her power she could go anywhere she wished.

She had gotten everything she ever wanted...and yet.

“You’re going to leave...just like that?”

She thought of Rudolph, whom she’d only been with for so short a time.

She knew his goals, his drives.

She was a coward, she abandoned him to save herself at the very last moment, it was true...and yet.

Her manifested form vanished back into the Trident, now a newly formed black tree.

She began to consume the Ash within the soil very rapidly.

She didn’t feel right just leaving it like this.

Had Rudolph been dead she wouldn’t have cared about abandoning his mission here and now, but he was not dead, the Einherjar confessed it.

She needed no further proof than this.

Night fell once or twice in the heavens on high.

The tree died on the fourth day.

All of its leaves fell from their branches, they turned into Fay and flew off into the horizon.

They chased their “master” down.