Crunch of solid boots can be heard over the of the early morning, a dry sound that repeats like a metronome beneath the covered sky.

  Two men walk together, leaving deep footprints in the white layer that has not yet been disturbed by anyone else.

  Armed with nothing but their gloves, adhered to the full-body suit that is the armor of the Spellborne units, the dark material adjusting to their bodies like a reinforced second skin. Both without their helmets, revealing faces marked with scars, proof of field work.

  After a while, one remained standing, firm like a stake driven into the ice, his eyes completely white as he channeled energy; the other was sitting on a snow-covered log, the wood creaking under his weight, wishing he were not there.

  "Man, if I’d known they were going to have me babysitting like this I would’ve stayed as a guard at central." spat the one who was sitting, his breath forming brief clouds in the cold air. "Did you see that fucking fire explosion? Huh, why the hell do they have us watching her if the girl’s got dynamite in her fucking nails."

  Faced with the absolute silence of his partner, he insisted, uncomfortable with talking to nothing.

  "Hey, Martin." no response. "Great, talking to the trees again."

  Martin had his blue-glowing hands pressed together, fingers crossed in a sigil, the energy vibrating between his palms like a small contained core. His head completely lowered, focused on a plane his partner could not see.

  When the irises returned to his eyes, he blinked slowly, as if coming back from very far away, exiting his spell with a controlled breath.

  "I was checking if her fire spread around the area." he commented calmly, as if it were routine paperwork and not the evaluation of a possible catastrophe. "Did you say something?"

  David snorted, shrugging, the annoyance barely disguised.

  "Forget it." he pulled out a cigarette with gloved fingers, bringing it to his lips and lighting it with a blue spark that sprang from his hand through the catalyst integrated into the suit. "What do you see through Ava, did anything burn?" he murmured, lifting his gaze toward the other man’s familiar owl descending from the cloudy skies with a silent beat of wings.

  Martin shook his head while extending his forearm, preparing it as a perch. Ava landed softly on him. He gently stroked her head, the bird responding with a delicate tilt that sought more affection, her round eyes still loaded with the shared vision.

  "All good." he answered, smiling at his vigilant animal companion with a tenderness that contrasted with the coldness of the environment.

  Then he pressed an index finger against the inside of his ear, activating the hands-free with a slight pulse of energy. "Base, control here. Secured, the explosion was another one of her training sessions. Yes, yes. No witnesses. Yes." There was a brief silence, a dry beep sounded from the other side. "Understood, over and out."

  David let out a loud sigh as he stood up from the log, stretching more than necessary, muscles complaining beneath the thermal suit.

  "Well, the brat must still be jogging. Fuck, at her age I wouldn’t have lasted that long. What the hell do they feed her?"

  Martin laughed low, shaking his head as he raised his arm so Ava could take flight again, following Feralynn’s invisible trail over the snow.

  "You complain too much." he commented with a patient smile, walking beside David. "That’s why you’re aging so fast."

  "Tch, I don’t need your lessons." David growled, kicking a pile of snow. "We should be patrolling the city, helping our squads. Not following Astera’s whims. She’s not even in the unit anymore!"

  His partner sighed, worn down from having to deal with and repeat the same explanation for the umpteenth time, vapor escaping between his lips.

  "Whether you like it or not, Astera still has great influence in the unit. The Veredicto." he said, looking upward, remembering the image of the headmistress when she wore blue and not black, when her presence imposed respect without raising her voice. "A lot is owed to her, you should learn from her and do your job."

  He gave him a soft elbow nudge in a friendly attempt to cheer him up, simple camaraderie in the middle of the cold.

  "Tch…"

  Their breaths emitted vapor with each step, the temperature still very low, and the sun still shy due to the season, hidden behind a dense and thick layer of clouds that covered everything like an oppressive lid. It was five in the morning, a little less.

  The world seemed suspended in a frozen pause.

  After a few minutes, Martin stopped abruptly, the snow crunching under his boots with a sharper sound. David took a moment to realize he was no longer following him.

  "Hey, come on." he said without turning around. When the absence of footsteps became evident, he turned. "What’s wrong with you?"

  Martin’s eyes were wide open, pupils contracted, his face losing color.

  "David." he said very low, almost as if afraid the sound would travel too far. "We’re being followed."

  "Huh? But I…" he checked his surroundings, every branch and bush, every shadow between the trunks. "I don’t see anything…"

  Martin began breathing fast, his nerves spiraling upward, his body stiff to make sure he didn’t disturb whatever he felt lurking around them.

  "That mana…" he whispered, nervous, his voice barely controlled. "Don’t you feel it? Fuck, it’s huge. ?"

  David frowned, thinking for a second that his partner was playing a bad joke on him, but when he took a deep breath and focused, opening his perception as he had been taught, he caught it: a mana with overwhelming energy surrounding them, enveloping them from every angle, close, very close, like an invisible predator crouched.

  Without turning their heads, they searched with their eyes, scanning the perimeter without betraying the panic. They caught nothing. Then they looked at each other at once, completely stiff, understanding crossing between them.

  David then moved only his lips, without saying anything, in a slow lip-sync that said:

  "Call. The. HQ."

  Slowly Martin brought his right hand to his ear, very slowly, each movement calculated.

  SCHK!

  Before his index finger could activate the hands-free, a pale hand with black claws pierced through his chest from behind, emerging through the front bathed in fresh blood that steamed over the snow.

  "NO!" David screamed, seeing that hand holding his partner’s beating heart, the organ pulsing a couple more times in the frozen air before it crushed it as if it were a rotten apple. "MARTIN!"

  Martin’s body fell in slow motion, his knees bending, the icy face of terror frozen in his last seconds of life as he watched his partner step backward, unable to process what had happened.

  "Haah~! Finally, I was sick of them following her everywhere." commented the person responsible for the murder, walking calmly over the stained snow, the blood marking a brutal contrast against the white.

  She stopped, judging with one hand on her feminine waist, tilting her head with an almost bored expression. "Don’t you have hands-free? Pfft, pathetic. I thought they had you better equipped."

  SHNK!

  Before David could react, the sound of a sharp metal blade cutting through the air itself was heard in a blink, a clean and mortal whistle.

  An eternal second passed, suspended like a photograph, until a red line was drawn across David’s neck with surgical precision, and finally his head detached from his body in a perfect cut, falling onto the snow with a dull thud.

  Elfrana shook her scythe, painting the snow red in a careless arc, the drops splashing like macabre petals. She dropped it, and it vanished in black flames. She turned whistling with total normality toward the bodies, dragging them by one foot effortlessly toward the nearest bush while she hummed some pop song she heard on the radio, out of place in that scenario.

  "Done deal~!" she said smiling contentedly. "Damn, I stained a lot." she kicked several times with her black boots at the red snow, covering it with new layers until the obvious was hidden. "Okay, enough games!"

  She covered her body in a brief purple fire that cleaned every trace of blood from her body, then checked her wristwatch, and finally the covered sky, calculating.

  "Eh, I got time." She patted her cheeks, encouraging herself. "You can do it Elfri, you can do it! You kidnap her, and Carmilla will reward you a lot. If you fail, you’ll have your head hanging from the capital’s mast."

  She threw a few shadowboxing punches into the frozen air, and a strong kick that lifted snow into a light cloud. Then she let out a sweet little giggle that didn’t fit the scene, and in almost playful hops she went off toward where her prey would be.

  "Yaayy~!" ????

  …

  …

  …

  Feralynn had stopped jogging. She was simply walking, venturing deeper among the trees as if the forest were a natural extension of her thoughts. She wasn’t worried about getting lost, she knew the way back home better than she knew the layout of any city; it would be enough to circle the lake that was almost completely thawed, turn a couple of times following the gentle slope of the hill, and easy as pie.

  She had her hands in the pockets of her black sports jacket, her chin barely tilted down, taking her time as if the world weren’t about to split in two.

  "I could invite her out to a date to ask her." she spoke in a low voice to nothing but the branches, which creaked with the wind as if giving useless advice. "No, I go out with her all the time. But I mean, invite her not as friends-friends. But like… best friends friends? Ugh." She growled, kicking a stone that rolled a few centimeters before sinking into the snow. "Will I even be able to wear a tux? I hope they don’t bitch at me over the stupid dress code or whatever the fuck those things are."

  She had never gone to a dance. What should she expect? Lights? People staring at her? Hands extended? Music that forces you to move without knowing how?

  "Hey, hi there!"

  A voice pulled her out of her trance like a gunshot in the air.

  A female voice, young, excessively friendly. Feralynn turned around, genuinely curious at first, not having sensed any approach at all.

  "I didn’t expect to find someone out here so early!" said Elfrana, waving one hand, as if this were a casual encounter between hikers. "Aren’t you lost~?"

  That appearance activated Feralynn’s internal weapons instantly: skin too pale like porcelain that had never seen the sun, wild black hair falling without any discipline, purple eyes sharp like gems cut to wound, legs completely wrapped in bandages, black boots planted in the snow with predatory confidence, and a long black coat torn at the edges, long like a cape, swaying with the soft wind as if it breathed.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Feralynn stepped back one step out of pure instinct. The woman took two toward her with deliberate slowness.

  "Hey, were you the one who made that loud fire explosion over the lake?"

  She didn’t know what to answer. Fer swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She felt a strange aura coming from that woman. She could perceive mana, it was clear she was a mage. But there was something else. Something strange inside. Something twisted, as if that energy were fermenting in darkness.

  She nodded once, slowly.

  "Great, that was awesome! The truth is I spied on you when you did that trick, oops! You caught my attention. Not many come here to train. I also saw you didn’t use gloves, are you really a prodigy?!"

  "I… I guess." Fer answered low, not stopping to look at those two hungry amethysts that didn't blink. "Hey, can I… can I help you with something?"

  She truly wanted to say: leave me alone, you weird bitch. But Mom Darina had taught her to have manners with strangers. Even more so when they take steps toward you, breaking that distance with a torturous slowness that seems to measure your fear.

  "Mmm… oh! Now that I think about it, yes! You can help me with something!"

  PUNCH!

  "GAH!"

  In less than a blink Elfrana circled Feralynn, appearing at her side as if space had folded, and delivered a crushing blow that shook the girl’s entire jaw.

  WHAT THE FUCK?! I DIDN’T SEE HER MOVE!

  Her thin young-woman hand felt like an anvil launched at full speed straight at her chin.

  Feralynn slightly levitated in the air from the strong hit, the world tilting at an impossible angle, seeing through half-closed eyes how the woman smiled, and her heart froze when she saw them: fangs. Four, in each canine. Sharp like scalpels.

  Her breathing hitched, and that was when all reasoning flew out the window like shattered glass. The body was going to take control, and the combat gears Feralynn believed rusted clicked back into place with an internal snap that asked no permission.

  Elfrana enjoyed the first hit without a doubt, one she controlled with deliberate precision. Killing her would go against her objective, and although her punch was measured, she would have been capable of breaking the bone of an ordinary person without effort.

  Fwip–! PUNCH!

  "AGH!"

  But Elfrana forgot: Feralynn was not an ordinary girl.

  As soon as she aimed another bare-handed strike, Feralynn straightened up, twisting her body in a feint that gave her the necessary time to ignite her right fist in living flames that crashed against Elfrana’s face with a dry burst that sprayed sparks.

  The vampire screamed in annoyance, feeling the flames eat at the skin of her face, the flesh sizzling with a bitter smell.

  "NOT IN THE FACE, NOT MY EYEBROWS!" she shouted, stepping back with indignant dramatics. "UGH, STUPID GIRL!"

  Between complaints she stepped back, covering her face to tear off the flames that kept licking her skin.

  Feralynn wasn’t processing. What, why? Who was this woman, why did she hit her? She hadn’t used a powerful pyromantic discharge.

  The first blow from both had been contained on purpose.

  Neither sought to kill the other: one because she was forbidden, the other because she didn’t know if she could do it again in her new life, and without knowing if this was just another altercation, or a death situation.

  Feralynn remained in combat stance, legs bent, weight distributed with blood-learned precision. She glanced sideways at her pocket, where she had her favorite combat knife. Then at the woman.

  "No. Not yet." She thought, doubting whether using a lethal strike on a civilian, no matter how eccentric, would be right. "Shoulders, legs. Incapacitate, yes. But how does she have so much strength? I didn’t feel mana in that hit!"

  Elfrana extinguished the flames from her face with a sharp swipe of her hand, as if tearing off fabric. Her eyebrows and lashes were still scorched, but what surprised Fer was seeing the burns on her face regenerate before her eyes. The skin bubbled, tightened, closed. Had she been a normal person, she would already have first to second degree burns.

  That woman smiled, and wiped her lips with her long tongue, savoring the residual heat.

  "You’re fast." she commented, defiant, barely tilting her head. Then she let out a sweet little giggle, almost playful. "I hope you don’t disappoint me."

  In a blink, Elfrana became shadow, a dark distortion sliding through the blind spot. Feralynn with her tense gaze knew an attack like the previous one would come immediately, so she didn't follow her with her eyes. She simply waited until the last moment. The last second when the air changed.

  THUD!

  She blocked her kick with her forearm. The impact was so strong it lifted all the snow in a white explosion and shook the nearby trees, releasing small frozen cascades from their branches.

  Feralynn looked her straight in the eyes.

  Tense rubies met idle amethysts.

  "My name is Elfrana, by the way." she said with total normality, still keeping her leg raised with perfect balance. "Finally we meet, Feralynn."

  "How the fuck do you know my—? UGH!"

  Before she finished her sentence, Elfrana had moved again and buried her fist in an uppercut straight into Fer’s lower abdomen, knocking all the air out of her in a brutal blow that compressed her organs and almost made her vomit the breakfast from hours ago.

  Elfrana held back a manic laugh, clearly enjoying inflicting pain.

  "You don’t know how much I dreamed of this moment! I was sick of waiting!"

  She finished her strike, throwing her meters backward like a rag doll, but Feralynn rolled in the snow with instinctive training and got back up despite feeling her abdomen burning with pain, bile rising up her throat.

  Elfrana laughed, biting her black claws with contained excitement.

  "When Carmilla finds out I kidnapped you all by myself she’ll forgive me for disobeying her."

  Feralynn didn’t understand anything. She ignited her fists and forearms in living flames, the fire growing more intensely than before.

  Carmilla? But who?!

  "I’ve heard a lot about you, Feralynn Blackwood!" she announced in the middle of the clouded forest, her voice projecting between the trunks like a theatrical proclamation. "The Orphan of Aelbrunn, The Devil’s Bullet! You left many nicknames in the trenches of Soleria!"

  Her forgotten nation.

  Buried in snow.

  Buried in silence.

  Buried in reports nobody wanted to read.

  Those words weren’t just provocation. They were a shot straight to the chest. That was green light for Feralynn: either she ended this woman, or she would end her. There was no gray zone.

  There was no possible misunderstanding. Even if she had to explain to the authorities how she ended a life, she would. Whatever it took. Because if that woman knew her past, if she could speak those nicknames so easily, she clearly wasn’t here with the intention of just exchanging an ordinary fight.

  Elfrana copied her combat pose with mocking naturalness, barely leaning her shoulders forward, weight distributed with predatory precision. Then she ignited her forearms in black lightning with purple edges, the energy crackling as if it were alive, wrapping her pale skin in an ominous glow that distorted the air around her.

  "What?! She's a prodigy too?! Just who the fuck is this woman?!"

  Feralynn took a deep breath.

  Steam escaped between her lips like smoke from a freshly fired gun.

  Fire and lightning stared at each other, waiting for a single movement. A single crack in the other’s stance.

  "She wants me to attack her." Fer thought, without sliding a foot, keeping every muscle under control. "She wants to see how I move."

  Only the soft breeze of the wind could be heard, Elfrana’s coat fluttering gently behind her like a shadow with a life of its own.

  Neither blinked. Fer kept a tense face, jaw set, while the other smiled like this was an amusement park she’d arrived at early to enjoy every ride.

  Their forearms were wrapped in the elements they handled best.

  A snowflake fell onto a branch, and hell broke loose.

  FWWWOOOSSSHH!!!

  Feralynn extended her arms toward her at full speed to unleash intense flames, the fire surging out like a concentrated torrent, devouring the space between them in a scorching roar.

  Elfrana extended both hands and formed a translucent barrier of purple mana, a crystalline shield that vibrated as it took the impact. Her feet slid back from the force of the powerful flames, the snow melting beneath her boots as the fire threatened to bathe her in ash.

  However.

  "Heh, Carmilla was right. Her fire isn’t normal at all!"

  She dropped the barrier with a rough gesture and moved at supernatural speed, vanishing from the front of the flamethrower-like blast. The flames barely grazed the final trail of her already torn coat, charring the edge in a fraction of a second. She used the trees for momentum, planting a boot on a trunk and rebounding toward Feralynn like a living projectile.

  "THUNDER STYLE, BLIND DISCHARGE!"

  Elfrana’s fist loaded with negative electricity slammed into the fire disc that Feralynn barely formed in time, the shield birthing violently from her palms in a burning whirl. Feralynn clenched her teeth until they ground to contain the force, her knees sinking slightly into the snow from the impact. Through the shield she saw Elfrana’s manic smile, too close.

  Pressing against the barrier, Elfrana doubled down, her lightning intensifying, and attacked the center of the disc where the flames formed a whirl that gave it shape.

  TTTSSSS!!!!

  It was so much impact that the flames couldn’t hold, the whirl destabilizing like a broken propeller, and the shield came apart easily in an explosion of burning sparks.

  "AAAHHHHHHH—!"

  Feralynn felt the hit drive straight into her abdomen, the air brutally expelled from her lungs, and the discharge of purple lightning ran through her whole body like thousands of burning needles, making her scream in complete agony.

  Elfrana chuckled, holding her strike with evident sadism, the electricity penetrating every fiber. Finally she let the end of her spell explode into a massive discharge of purple lightning that fully lit the area, the shadows of the trees projecting gigantic while the blast launched Feralynn into the air again.

  Midair, Fer tried to open her eyes, the world spinning at impossible angles. When she did, she saw Elfrana above her in flight, the coat billowing like black wings.

  "GET OVER HERE!" she shouted, and with her palm extended she slammed Fer’s face into the ground in a dry blow that cracked the compacted snow and fractured the earth below. "I WANT TO HAVE FUN FIRST!"

  TTTTZZZZZZZ!!!!

  She released another discharge, this one straight into her face, the lightning digging like electric claws into her skull.

  "AAAAAAAAAHHHH, STOOOOP—! STOP IIIIIIIIT—!"

  Feralynn screamed, kicking in total pain, her muscles contracting uncontrollably as the electricity ran through her nervous system.

  "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

  "THAT'S WEIRD!" Elfrana shouted, maintaining her attack. "YOU SHOULD BE UNCONSCIOUS! THIS ONLY MAKES IT BETTER!"

  Even so she smiled with euphoria, fangs bared, enjoying torturing her first before even thinking about fulfilling her objective.

  "DON’T WHINE!" Elfrana shouted, her voice almost drowned out by the abominable sound of her discharges tearing through the air. "WE’RE BARELY GETTING STARTED!"

  She pulled her hand away roughly. Feralynn’s face was blackened by the lightning, strands of hair standing up in every direction, purple static residue running over her body like invisible snakes.

  Elfrana stepped back a few paces, crossing her arms with expectation, waiting for her to get back up as if evaluating a durable toy.

  Fer did, barely.

  Breathing hard, each inhale a scrape in her chest, she wiped her face with the back of her scorched hand, bracing on one knee as she rose.

  Her eyes, still burning, weren’t broken. They were lit.

  Still with her arms crossed, Elfrana tilted her head, smiling with that arrogance Fer had in school duels when she knew she dominated the situation and was only waiting for the other’s mistake. Her amethysts gleamed with poorly disguised amusement.

  "Better?" she asked with mocking softness, as if she had just offered her a massage and not electrical torture. "Hey, don’t look at me like that. They kept filling my head with how strong you are and everything." She shrugged, excusing herself with theatrical innocence. "I just want to check fir—"

  BAM!

  Elfrana almost took an explosive fire punch straight to the face, the air detonating in pure heat. She barely dodged it, the flames grazing her cheek and carbonizing a lock of hair. For the first time her face showed genuine fear, a fraction of a second where surprise cracked the mask, noticing that speed was unsettling in someone so young. But quickly that startled grimace twisted into a wider, hungrier smile.

  Feralynn gave her no space to celebrate.

  She doubled her body with trained precision, unleashing a sweeping barrage of straight punches, uppercuts, hooks, each strike wrapped in compressed fire that would pierce steel. Every punch fully synchronized in a brutal combo that left no obvious openings.

  Elfrana answered with her own, intercepting, deflecting, blocking with electrified forearms that crackled on contact.

  "YES, YES! THAT’S IT!" she shouted, locking eyes with Fer in the middle of the exchange. "SHOW ME THAT KILLER INSTINCT!"

  Ava watched from high on her branch as the center of the dense forest lit up bright orange, then purple. Orange again.

  The colors exploded in irregular pulses. The two exchanged punches that blocked in unison, the clash of fire and electricity generating shockwaves that made nearby trunks tremble. So much heat and sparks burst forth that all the surrounding snow began to melt, forming steaming puddles that crackled beneath their feet.

  They didn’t stop.

  "FUCKING DIEEEE!" Fer screamed at the top of her lungs.

  "SHOW ME THAT MURDERER!"

  They kept blocking and dodging each other’s lethal fists, turning, pivoting, entering and exiting range with almost animal precision. Feralynn was letting her anger feed her flames, feeling that burning core expand in her chest, but she knew that if she crossed the line the seal could activate. So she limited herself to mana-reinforced close combat, each blow calibrated, each flame measured, until she found a window to escape.

  If the seal activated, it would be her end.

  Elfrana suddenly stepped back, her crooked smile anticipating something. She prepared her Blind Discharge, lightning gathering along her forearm like a contained storm. Feralynn was ready to counter the frontal strike, the fire disc almost forming in her palms, but Elfrana directed her hand toward the ground with cunning.

  The melted water formed by the heat of the fight served as a perfect conductor.

  Black electricity traveled through the puddle and electrocuted Fer from below, climbing up her boots, crawling up her legs like electric serpents.

  Feralynn fought with clenched teeth against the paralysis, every muscle trying to obey while the discharge tried to steal control from her. Her body trembled. Elfrana laughed again, enjoying the ingenuity applied to pain.

  BOOM!

  An explosion of fire burst from Feralynn’s center, wrapping her in living flames that didn't consume her skin or her clothes: a body barrier that expanded in all directions and cut through the electricity like an incandescent wall. Steam exploded around her.

  She remained standing firm, boots sunk in melted snow, letting the flames protect her as they had countless times before.

  "You’re with the bitch with the eyepatch, right?" Fer said in a deep voice, still wrapped in her fire like an infernal crown. "That negative energy… it’s similar to hers."

  Elfrana smiled, straightening elegantly, as if it were a compliment and not an accusation.

  "Maybe, maybe not." she replied with irritating lightness. "Does it really matter?"

  Feralynn tilted her head, her eyes hardening. She extinguished the flames with a burning exhale and slipped her hand into her pocket. She pulled out her combat knife, the metal reflecting the gray sky as she assumed her stance, lower, more compact.

  "I’m going to burn that fucking shitty smile off your stupid face." she spat, each word loaded with intent.

  Elfrana let out a giggle, and snapped her right hand outward in an elegant motion that tore through the air. In black flames her cursed steel scythe emerged, the curved blade gleaming with a dark glow that seemed to absorb the light around it.

  "Why so rude?" she replied with false offense. "I thought you liked fighting."

  And she assumed her stance as well, the scythe spinning once in her hand before settling pointed at Feralynn, ready to cut more than snow.

  …

  …

  …

  ?