“Shit.” Maddison wrangled from her chains as she lay helpless on the floor. She shifted her weight to the side so that she could try and roll over into a more comfortable position but alas, most of her strength was gone.

She watched the Lady, Alejandra, exchange blades in a one on duel against the Captain of the Ambush. She looked like she was struggling to keep up as the Captain kept his face stoic in the entire battle.

Alejandra could barely match his speed as Hughie, the Captain, swung his sword indiscriminate of his surroundings. 

“Now would be a good time to activate your magic stuff, Sword” She commented, glaring at her own sword.

“Maybe, it just doesn't deem you good enough.” Hughie mocked with a grin and Alejandra scowled at him.

Alejandra glares and swings her sword with spite and makes the Captain take a step back. “Why do you have to be so noisy?” She clicked her tongue before they ran into each other and crossed blades again.

The sword fight they had was immaculate, they sped around the second garden, splitting nearby plants into pieces, their sword echoing through the gardenscape like a hundred clashing bells. 

Alejandra grit her teeth, she could feel her palms sweating and grip loosen. She couldn't keep up with the Captain’s stamina. It took every part of her to take his heavy blows and it won't be long before her arms turn numb and give out.

Somewhere by the bushes and the dirt, Maddison was crawling as best as she could until she stumbled by a rock. Her strength was weak and she couldn't feel most of her body but she had to do everything she could to survive. 

This little mishap from her shall be a learning lesson to be prepared for even an extremely unlikely scenario. Even ones like the rarest material, Conatus, being used against her.

“Here.” She winced. She felt a rock by her wrist. She took a deep breath before she smacked the shackles on them. After all, if she manages to break the chains, she’d be able to fight the Captain again.

Maddison thrashed her arms onto the sharp piece of rock, in an effort to fully break the fetters. She glanced up just in time as Alejandra crashed into a tree and ducked right in time to avoid being cut in half. The tree couldn't say the same however, as its upper half fell to the side.

Alejandra rolled as far from Hughie as possible, her dress was now in tatters, her arms were laden with cuts and her hair lost in arrangement a couple of exchanges ago.

Her long dark hair fell behind her as it gathered leaves, dirt, and rocks within its strands. Alejandra couldn't bother to keep it clean anymore. She grit her teeth and tightened her muscles as right after standing up she raised her sword to defend against a blow from Hughie.

“Grr…” She clenched her teeth as the strike she received was so strong that she felt like her arms were about to be snapped like twigs.

Seriously, her blade's magic triggered earlier. Why wasn't it working now? 

Alejandra felt annoyed. What was she missing that prevented her from using the cold icy chill of the sword that was gifted to her.

She felt her bones ache as the force of the Captain’s strike felt like a whole anvil was thrown at her. She tried as she could but despite all her efforts she was launched backwards another time.

She struck her back into another tree denting its truck and sending pieces of it shattering around. Alejandra glanced up and drew her sword as Hughie came rushing again, not stopping his furious salvo. 

Hughie smirked and before Alejandra could prepare herself, he vanished. The Lady looked around for him but then suddenly, she was surrounded by copies of him. 

She turned around and realized that there were dozens…no. A Hundred.

There were a hundred clones of the Captain surrounding her. She felt her skin crawl as fear settled in the pits of her stomach.

Still, she held her ground and breathed in. The clones all came charging at her at once. She couldn't focus on a single clone, so she just struck as many as she could. She recalled all the ‘one against many’ sparring sessions she had against the Ramirez knights.

She managed to parry and dispel a few of the clones, but then she sliced in the back. Then she was cut in her arm. Soon, a blade swept her ankle.

She dropped to her knees.

She had lost all her momentum and in the next few torturous moments. She was cut and stabbed all over her body. All these attacks were non-fatal and instead only served to deliver immense pain.

“AAAGH!” Alejandra screamed. Her body was covered in injuries and blood. She felt dizzy, like she was about to faint. Her chest beat like crazy and her entire body felt numb.

The Crown Princess's blade dropped on the ground.

She couldn't stand up. She laid helpless on her knees as the Captain walked up to her with a disappointed sigh in his step.

“BASTARD!” Maddison screamed from the side, her hands were bleeding and her wrists were bruised. It seemed as though throughout the entire fight between the two, she had basically smashed her hands against the rock in hopes of removing the Conatus shackles.

The Captain glances towards the Red Witch. Her beautiful face turned into an ugly scowl as she glared knives towards him. Maddison felt blood boil inside her. 

She was furious, absolutely angry.

“I didn't take the leader of the Underworld to be such an attached individual.” Hughie mused as he grabbed Alejandra by the hair and pulled it down to look at the Lady’s face. “What is it about you that makes the Red Witch so…tethered?”

“LET HER GO!” Maddison didn't really understand why she was mad or why she felt so deeply enraged. She had told herself not to get too close to the Lady.

Did she forget herself?

She clenched her fists as her rage grew ever the more stronger.

Whatever. It didn't matter right now, all Maddison knew was if the Lady wasn't saved. All her plans were in danger. She had to reason to herself why she felt so compelled to help Alejandra Ramirez.

In the end… Did she even need a reason?

“Hmph.” The Captain gazed at the glare the Lady was giving him as well. Alejandra couldn't move her body, but she wasn't about to let some stranger put their hands on it without her defiance. “I supposed you seem fairly adequate to hold some fair bit of devotion to. Your name and your potential seems far beyond your normal person.”

He turned to the Red Witch with a smile then gripped Alejandra's hair and smashed her face into the dirt. “You have indeed picked a capable pet, Red Witch.” He then stepped on her head to drive it deeper down on the ground.

“FUCK YOU!” Maddison spat at him.

“I’m,” Alejandra resolved her will, “not a goddamn pet.”

“Is that so?” Hughie scratched his cheek. He put his foot away from her head and kicked her in the chest instead. 

“Guh!” Alejandra felt like vomiting. Her gut was just struck with a powerful kick that she rolled over to her other side.

“What is she then, Red Witch? If she says she's not a pet?” Hughie smiled as he mocked the helpless woman in front of him.

Maddison’s face was no longer full of fury. Her eyes moved away from the Captain and turned towards the suffering Alejandra, who was clutching her gut as she vomited spit and gastric fluid from the kick she received.

Maddison’s expression was dejected, worried, and guilty.

Why did she feel this way?

Why did she feel so worried for the Lady she only planned to use?

Was this a mistake?

Did she mess up?

Hesser…that old man. He was right wasn't he?

She got too close to her. These emotions…

She shouldn't have them.

“What does it matter?” Maddison opened her mouth and glared at the Captain. “She may not be a pet, but we exist to use each other. She's just another tool to me.” 

Maddison could not afford any emotions connecting her to the world.

She must sacrifice her soul, her heart, everything. 

For the sake of her goal.

“I see.” Hughie laughed. “I guess in the end, tools are tools.” He walked over to Alejandra and grabbed her collar.

“Get away from me.” Alejandra tried to fight back but the pain from everything kept all her movements slow and weak. 

The Captain threw her right in front of the Red Witch. “You heard her, Young Lady.” His voice cut deeper than his sword. “What would you like to say back?”

“My Lady,” Maddison’s eyes couldn't hide the guilt she felt from the words she had spoken. 

“Don’t.” Alejandra snapped. “Don't give me excuses.”

Alejandra noticed her sword near her. Despite all her cuts, and all her bleeding. She managed to pick herself back up.

“Oh?” The Captain chuckled. The Lady took her stance and prepared herself to cross blades again. “I assumed you would have learned the difference in our abilities by now.”

“I don't care.” Alejandra's expression was dead.

The air suddenly turned colder and the wind started to pick up. A waft of cold blew away the surrounding dust. Alejandra's blade had turned from silver to a translucent sky blue. 

The ice in the blade radiating deadly frost, that if one were to touch, would give them instantaneous frostbite.

“That blade.” Hughie felt excitement course through him. “It truly is magnificent.”

The Crown Princess's sword. A gift from her parents. A blade filled with love and memories of the child long gone.

But that was its previous use. Now it's in the hands of someone else. The love of the Emperor and Empress vanished under the pressure of resentment and malice. A blade powered by strong emotion was energized by the Lady’s bitter disappointment. “Hoarfloe. This sword shall be the thin gray sheet of ice that will cut through everything.”

“Then I will receive that sword with honor.” Hughie raised his chin. “Upon your death, I shall take that blade to greater heights.”

“Heh.” Alejandra’s smile held no emotion in them, as her breath became visible from the sudden wintry air. Her skin turning pale and the ends of her hair turning bluish gray. 

Somehow, the whole Lady’s attitude had changed. As if she wasn't the same person. The way she stood, her demeanor, her stance, all of it had shifted to something entirely different.

“My lady?” Maddison called but there was no response.

Alejandra, if it was still her, lifted her arm up and raised the sword high in the sky. The Captain smirked and prepared to take the slash.

“Reticence.” The Lady gently slashed it downwards.

For a moment there was silence.

Hughie raised an eyebrow. “What—” an engulfing avalanche of freezing hail burst from behind Alejandra.

An avalanche of snow and cold wind blasted from her direction towards Hughie with no sign of stopping. Alejandra drew closer, and with each step, the intensity of the cold grew stronger.

“Don't think this is enough to stop me!” Hughie grunted as he escaped from the blizzard and summoned yet another hundred of his clones.

Alejandra’s eyes dilated until they were all white. She opened her mouth and ice shards solidified in the air. “Piety.” With one word the particles of frost snapped in various directions eliminating clones one after another. 

Maddison was horrified. What was happening?

This destructive capability seemingly equal to hers.

What was this magic sword?

And is the woman in front of her…still the Lady of Ramirez?

Maddison edged closer. “My lady!” She called but the woman heeded no response to her words. The bitter frost held the clones at bay as the Captain dashed around dodging the sharp icicles that chased after him.

“My Lady, Alejandra!” The Red Witch called again. 

There was still no response.

“My Lady, please!” It felt hopeless. The person fighting the Captain was no longer the Heir of Ramirez. Something was possessing her.

Was it the blade?

Was it something else?

Maddison grit her teeth and she remembered their first meeting. She felt her chest tighten and she spoke the name that she had only spoken once before. In one last hope to get Alejandra back. “TAYLOR!”

A cry that seemingly stopped time.

The cold is slowly fading. 

Alejandra blinked, her eyes no longer pure white, the tips of her hair returning to full black, and the paleness of her skin dissipating. She staggered in her stance. “What happened?” 

She turned around to face the person who called her. She hasn't been called that name in years, a name her father had given her as a simple nickname to escape to whenever being Alejandra became too hard. It was a name that represented the carefree child inside her, the one who didn't want all the burdens of being a noble.

“Maddison? How do you kno–guh!” Her words were cut off as a blade pierced through her chest.

“That ice was surprisingly hard to deal with.” Hughie grimaced. “A magic sword shouldn't be able to do that.”

He pulled out the blade from her chest and she fell to the floor. 

Alejandra stared at the hole through her body, the blood that poured down from it.

Her eyes grew weary, her vision grew dark.

“Alejandra…” The voice of her mother spoke in her mind. “You have the blood of Azarolla in you.” A vision appeared in her mind.

She blinked, nodding her head.

“Because of that blood, you carry a deep power. It is a power that comes with a curse.” Roselia caressed her daughter's cheeks. “It overtakes your body, it makes you lose your humanity…it slowly kills you.”

Roselia’s eyes had resolved. “But if a time ever comes where there is no one to save you…you must use it. Everyone’s Spirit is different…but us Azarolla are far more unique than the others.”

“The Curse of Azarolla, that runs deep in our family. A Spirit that turns you into a monster.” Roselia’s eyes were certain. “Between dying or becoming a monster, I plead with you to make this choice, my dear daughter.”

“Become a monster.”

SORRY FOR UNANNOUNCED HIATUS, I'M BACK BUT THERE'S NO PROMISES FOR 29 NEXT WEEK.

ALSO....what is up with Alejandra's sword?