-Break-

One extremely brutal battle later

Orb, Iancu and Suzuka all lay on the ground beaten and battered, with the body of the giant moth dead beside them.

Taming his anger Orb says, “Both of you apologize now.”

Iancu and Suzuka both scream in unison, “IT WASN’T MY FAULT, IT WAS ALL THAT MONSTERS!” directly at each other.

With bright red hair, I say, “DOES IT LOOK LIKE I CARE!!!!!? Both of your fighting alerted the wonderbeast to our location, and guess who was the first to be attacked, ME!

It almost crushed my head in one blow, I ALMOST DIED! Not only that but it was able to mould all of its fluff into weapons and all of its fluff was coated in some kind of weird drug, EVERYTHING AROUND ME IS SPINNING AND PINK!!!!”

Suzuka says, “Hey we helped!”

“DID YOU THOUGH! You both started fighting in the middle of the fight with the giant moth, and I had to do all the heavy lifting myself!”

“THAT’S BECAUSE THE DUMB FOX COULDN’T KEEP HER MOUTH SHUT!”

“SAY SOMETHING AGAIN AND MY FIST WILL FLY INTO YOUR FACE!”

“ENOUGH!” I say with the voice of a demon. “All your fighting ends right now go bow to each other and apologize or I will never forgive you again!”

Iancu says, “Sorry, but my leg doesn’t bow to self-entitled brats.”

Suzuka says, “Sorry, but I don’t think insects will understand human gestures.”

They both get up and begin to fight each other again. Angered I run over to both of them and physically break them apart.

“Stop with the nonsense and apologize!”

“You're not my father, why would I ever listen to you!”

“Cyrus, Atalanta, Maple, Mommy, Daddy, Orb is bullying me!” She says while crying.

“Can’t you two just work together and be friends!”

They both scream back at me, “NO!”

Then they look at each other and again say in unison, “Stop copying me!” And then they continue to fight.

I have bested hundreds of men at a time, I have pulled off miracles one after another, and I have even found my own country, but I can say one thing, no way will I ever be able to deal with these two.

I sigh and as I do I hear something approach us at incredible speed, so I kick both of the fighting brats away, and then as the fast thing attacks me, I move away and using my legacy I punch it and create ice on impact.

But the thing moves so fast that it gets away before I see it. As I try to compose myself from the surprise attack, I hear something right behind me.

I don’t know what it is but it is approaching me just as fast as the last thing, no even faster. I can sense that a blade infused with spirit energy is coming towards my neck, so I move with as much force as I can generate to get my head out of the way but it cuts off my right arm.

After this I snowboost away, and notice that my arm isn’t regenerating, how is this possible? Suddenly I remember my experimentation; those blades must conduct lighting that’s how they blocked my regeneration.

I activate my legacy on the part of my right arm that is left and freeze that entire area stopping blood from flowing out of it, and as I do that I say, “Iancu, Suzuka play time is over.”

Even though I said this, both of them had already assumed battle positions.

Φ Due to being a nightmare my physical capabilities are far greater than a normal human (though not to the same extent as a dragon), yet even with that I wasn’t able to even notice these things.

Φ When it comes to sensing spirit energy, I can do it so well that having my eyes open actually hinders my ability to fight. Yet I couldn’t sense them until they were about to attack. Which means all this speed is physical ability.

Still with only Orb and the dirty one around, I can use my other method of finding people. Block out both Orb's never-ending stream of thoughts and Iancu’s disgusting thoughts, I hear for whatever’s around me.

Suddenly I hear two voices in my head.

“I should crush the ice brat first, he is the control tower. Without him, the other two will be lost.”

“I will simply follow the lead of brother like always,” A second person thought.

“ORB 78 DEGREES RIGHT!”

Φ I instantly follow Suzuka’s instructions and create a wall of ice in that position.

The one coming towards me is the slower one, and when I struck it earlier I realized it has rather tough skin so it would break through my ice. If I want to stop it I have to use Helix battle arts.

Just like when I fought Ahmed on Jedidiah, I create snow around one of my legs and spin it to build up spiral energy, and then I transfer that energy through my body and up to my fist and prepare to hit the thing.

But as it crashes through my ice I look at it and am frozen stiff upon looking at its form.

Φ Looking at Orb, I see he is sent flying into the air, and then lands behind the speeding thing. Seeing this I activate my legacy and then say, “Air resistance increase!”

This causes both of the speeding things to slow down as they approach me and as they do I get a good look at them.

They are both humanoid, one looks like a crimson rhinoceros beetle with heavy armour and a hammer. The other looks like a light navy stag beetle with two curved blades. I stand there stunned as I recognize what they both are.

Suzuka then asks, “Are those humans?”

“No, they are beastkin, a near-extinct race!”

The rhinoceros beetle says, “Extinct? You must be kidding there are more of us here than are strands of hair on your head.”

“You’re kidding me,” I say shocked again at this revelation.

Putting on her mask, Suzuka says aggressively, “We didn’t do anything wrong so why are you attacking us?”

The Rhinoceros beetle says, “You attacked the Aisachta over there and we are its guardians.”

“We fought it for some time so were where you?”

They both start to sweat and then the stag beetle says, “It definitely not because we fell asleep on the job.”

The rhinoceros beetle hits the stag, and says, “Don’t go around telling them that!”

“Sorry bro, I will do better!”

 I can’t believe beastkin are still around in such a large number, but more than that what are they doing here under Fimbulwinter, and more specifically under Orb’s house?

Breaking me out of my thoughts, Suzuka says, “Iancu!” While pointing at Orb.

On the ground, Orb is rolling and screaming in pain, whilst gripping the part of his body with the judgement attack imprinted onto it.

Orb said the pain from the judgment chains only activates when he is hit there, but the way Orb is acting is like his whole body is in pain not just the judgement part.

Suddenly a memory of Elpída plays in my mind. Didn’t this happen as well when he found out that Morrigan was a beastkin? Did seeing a beastkin trigger something in his legacy again?

As Iancu continues to mull this over Orb goes completely unconscious. Seeing this both Iancu and Suzuka lunge at the beetles in front of them and try to get past.

But they are both repelled away and are sent backwards. The rhinoceros beetle says, “Do you really think we were going to let you both get past us?”

“Hey, dumb fox.”

“Hey, dumb bat.”

Looking at Orb, with determined looks they both say, “WIN!”

Iancu runs and attacks the rhinoceros beetle, while Suzuka attacks the stag beetle.

Φ I send my tails and try to attack the stag, but it moves so fast that I can’t hit it.

“Too slow!”

“We will see about that. Fox art; Limb breakers.” I wrap my tails around my legs and arms so they reinforce and mimic muscles, then using that strength I dash forward to attack the stag.

I meet the stag in close-quarter combat, my reinforced fists clash with its twin blades, and as they do I gain ground.

In head-to-head combat, its movement speed doesn’t matter as much, and despite how fast it looks its blows are actually very light, so deflecting each blow isn’t taxing.

After my left fist and his right blade clash I put more force behind my fist which causes his right arm to fly backwards from the impact, and then with my other fist, I strike him in the stomach sending him back.

“Is that all you got?”

Standing up he says, “Not in your wildest of dreams!”

From both his blades lighting appears, and as he swings them the lightning comes towards me.

I instantly release the breakers around my arms and then use my tails to shield me from the lightning, but as I do from my left side I am cut by the stag beetle moving past me really quick.

As he cuts me a shock gets sent through my body, and I can’t move my left arm. So I use breakers against my left arm, which allows me to move the arm even though it is paralyzed.

I then chase after the stag beetle, but in terms of movement speed I am completely outclassed, so before I can catch up to it I am struck by it again.

He can attain this speed without spirit energy so it is difficult to track him, and I can’t track the lightning with anything other than my sense, so right now I am at a complete disadvantage.

What to do, what do I do!? Glancing at Orb, I start to panic but as I do I remember something my father told to me.

“Suzuka, the easiest way to defeat an opponent, is to create a miracle, or to put in simpler words take something they believe is constant on the battlefield and make it variable.”

I take off all my tails from my body, and then I plunge them into the ground, as he approaches me, I make them all pop out of the ground and make them surround me in a complex pattern.

My tails are far from me making a complex net all around the area as the stag beetle as he moves, so they can block his paths towards me. He may move fast but my reaction speed is definitely higher.

“Do you really think making a cage around yourself will keep you safe, all it has done is distance your only defence for you!”

He starts to move through my net at incredible speed and as he does that I bring me next closer like how one tightens a shoelace while throwing stones infused with my spirit energy at him, but he dodges them all.

He continues to come towards me and I continue to close my net in, at this rate my net will close in and bind him to myself and in that moment I will win.

But the moment before my net catches him he suddenly accelerates and whispers as he cuts me, “I can use spirit energy to go even faster.”

Φ Cutting the girl twice, I shock her and then start heading towards the largest hole in the net to escape before it closes in, and after I do that I will turn around and deal a killing blow.

As I head towards the hole, I notice that the next completely disappears, and the girl's spirit energy increases tremendously. Suddenly I notice she is right beside me, and I am subsequently hit with a devastating blow that knocks me directly onto the ground.

On the ground, I say, “How did you do that?”

“The net wasn’t made to catch you but to make you follow a specific path so that after you strike me I would instantly know where you would be without having to think about it

I then turned all of my tails into spirit energy, and using speed you would have never thought I was capable of I caught you. Took something you thought you had the advantage in and set a trap with it; your speed.”

Looking at her, I say, “A complete defeat.”