The youth turned in the field.

His boots tore at the soil and scattered it like dust as he halted.

The Scylla slithered over the dunes.

The octopoid skirt that ended the humanoid portion of her massive frame reached out into the landscape with tentacles or feelers, like some twisted jellyfish.

She charged him down and slammed her claws hard against his human frame, or so it did seem but when she rose her titanic body anew there was no trace of blood nor pulpy matter.

The insect had escaped again, and he had turned invisible in the instant later.

She snarled, for this was not the first time he’d done that to outmanoeuvre her.

He was wearing her down, slowly and surely she was being exhausted, while his considerably lighter frame was not at any comparable risk of the same.

She turned to face a nearby hill and bellowed loudly.

What she saw there was only his Tyrfing, his lance, but it was peering back at her with a blood red eye almost as if in mockery.

The body of the weapon seemed to warp in her vision, and then came the feeling of impact from a random direction.

That feeling was repeated several times more, and it always struck the same six or seven spots.

Her joints, her organs, the invisible man targeted the most vital places directly with his attempts on her life.

She bellowed, sent the lance flying with her tail.

The boy’s hand emerged from the veil of illusion to seize the weapon back and then all became invisible anew.

This back and forth had now gone on for several hours, her breath, exhausted from the struggle, caught up steadily, and then she howled anew.

This time, however, it was a call to aid, a cry for her beloved to run to her side.

He did not come, however, no matter how often she called him, but this time, unlike the last, he didn’t even answer back.

Her eyes, until then but beastial and without reason, widened with worry and clarity as she turned to face the horizon.

She beheld it only then, for it had not been there until now: it was a pillar, made of bright golden light.

 

O

 

Rapture, who was still unseen, seemed to pause in the shadow of the nearby hills.

His frame, now still, stopped to draw breath as he took stock of his state and surroundings.

Four hours had passed since they’d started this struggle, he creased his brows and waved his lance to behold its crimson eye. 

Objectively, he knew he was still too weak to take on the Scylla, far, far too weak.

Naturally she was not a threat any lone man, even himself, would ever consider taking down, but this factor did not matter much to him.

He had only acted until now in accordance with a plan, the idea being that all he had to do was hold out until Lucretia finished off the Charybdis and came over to aid him

This, of course, was why they’d chosen the battles that they had in the first place, for while the Charybdis was no doubt still a deadly foe in his own right, he was not half as much a danger as the female of his breed.

Contrariwise, Rapture knew that Lucretia was still very much stronger than himself, and her training as a Dragonslayer no doubt accustomed her to combat against larger airborne foes.

He acknowledged of course that he himself had made great strides in the Ragnarok and he had no doubt finally reached up to eight or nine tenths of the Princess’ power, but she’d been training her entire life as a Platinum Class. 

He then left the shadow of the hill.

He still thought that things were going well enough.

Assuming he was assessing with any accuracy the overall might of the Charybdis from its size in regards to the Scylla and his own seasoned skills as a hunter, then by his guess the Princess would be finishing that thing off any moment now.

After that, they would take out Scylla together, or so he hoped.

That hope however was dashed when he emerged into the light.

His eyes opened wide as he beheld the sight of that ominous golden pillar of Ash.

High above it he observed an all too familiar vortex that was taking shape in the heavens in the sky.

He could never mistake that sight; he alone in all of Muspelheim had beheld it in this lifetime.

He had seen it from on the porch of his old home on the lakebed, back when he was younger, smaller, weaker and far less wise than now.

He had seen it on the day Rognir took his mother away.

He gripped hard his lance in a horrid state of understanding.

He dreaded the reality that was shining down upon him with this light.

Again, it was happening yet again, that same vortex, that same aura, that same pressure.

Then he felt a tingle in his skin, a sensation not unfamiliar, but one which shouldn’t have struck him here.

Alarmed, he raised his weapon at the ready to face the Scylla, whose eyes fell on his invisible form without even a hint of error.

Thanks to that sensation he knew that she had used her Ash to sense his position.

That was the greatest and most fatal flaw in his master’s, in Amelia’s, technique.

He could hide his body from sight, but not his Ash from detection.

Unless he was using a method to conceal that, then it was only good against mindless beasts.

However, Scylla’s eyes now peered into him not with the rage of any such beast, but rather with the cold and quiet hatred of a thinking human woman.

 

O

 

Ninette of Saturn, bride of Arthur, that was her name, her title too. 

She never did become the Lady of Saturn, however, for her groom was only next in line, and he never did become a Lord.

They stood upon the bridge, unarmed, bound.

Her lover closed his eyes.

All he did was sigh as the executioner stepped closer.

Vincent was there, younger than today and struggling then to keep his face stern as he faced them.

The Sovereign sat in the seat of honor far upon the backdrop, and nothing could be done, to prove his loyalty, to save their city, this was all that Vincent could do.

“I don’t blame you,” Said Arthur, Father of Alexander, Vincent’s brother, and Ninette’s lover.

Vincent half closed his eyes.

She could see him struggling not to blink, for if he did blink, if he dared to blink, the wetness in his eyes would surely turn to tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and in that moment, Arthur actually apologized to him, to his brother.

“I know I am leaving you with a heavy burden.” 

Vincent said nothing, it was all that he could manage just to face his brother firmly.

The man who should’ve been a lord told his brother again, “I do not blame you...I have but one request. Please look after my son for me, Vince.”

Vincent stepped forward to half embrace the man before him, and then he told him,

“I will,” before thrusting him off the bridge and down into the waiting abyss.

Ninette screamed.

Her sobs and whimpers had never ceased, but now they turned to shrieks as she watched her husband vanish into the forest far below.

Fallen to her knees, she sobbed and cried until a shadow darkened the scene beneath her eyes.

She turned then, and looked up towards him, towards Vincent, who still shed not even a single tear.

She shook her head, in silence she begged, but it was for naught…

 

O

 

The Abyss welcomed them, they woke amongst the trees, battered from the fall.

Their bindings broke, Arthur’s first, then Ninettes with his aid.

She wasn’t a weak woman, nor was she without will, but the days and nights that followed dried her skill and strength till nothing remained.

She didn’t quite remember when they started to change.

They hadn’t done it consciously, they just acted as their instinct demanded.

Perhaps the overly rich Ash in this environment was partly the culprit, or maybe she’d just forgotten the moment her despair turned to madness and she chose monsterdom over mortality.

Perhaps she’d reached a point where she just wanted to forget it all, perhaps it was just easier to become a beast than a woman in this world.

She’d forgotten, she forgot everything.

Even her son, her baby, faded from her memory.

Yet what didn’t go away, what always remained, was the husband who she embraced so warmly every night.

He foraged for her and sheltered her.

Perhaps that’s why her monstrous form was so much larger than his?

Had she been better fed? Better cared for by his labors?

Or had she simply wanted to repay his care and protection in kind?

Who knows, it might well just be that the creatures they became had larger females by nature.

That was, after all, the nominal rule in nature to which humans, indeed most mammals, were but a noteworthy exception.

 

O

 

Now he was gone, her lover was dead, and the shock sharpened her mind like a knife.

Her eyes beheld the boy before her, the youth named Rapture, and all she could think about was how much she wanted to tear him limb from limb.

She suffered a brief headache, but in that moment recalled it all.

Her Ash poured forward, far greater than any mortal, even he could not compare.

The boy, whom she sensed in that moment, fled from her aura, her overwhelming power.

Yet this was not enough, though her Ash had turned the field into a crater, she needed more, she had to go further, this was not the limit she remembered!

Truth be told, she didn’t think it was necessary for her to go so far if she was just bidding to end Rapture alone.

The boy was best called a hunter or an assassin, his strengths lay in stealth and skills of the like.

He was strong, no doubt, but since she’d already torn off his guise, his options had fallen whilst her's had undergone a dramatic rise.

Armour clad her form, and she recalled her weapon of choice.

Like all in Saturn, she used a sword, and so appeared a blade that towered over the bodies of mortal men.

The youth, Rapture, readied his Tyrfing, Ash erupted from its frame as he too became clad in a pitch dark suit of armour.

He could no longer run, hide or trick her, he could but face her fury head on and defeat her.