Cathie sat alone on her sofa. Despite having a clear view of the small windows to the outside world she honestly couldn’t tell if it was moonlight or sunlight shining through them. The quiet of the town probably meant moonlight. She stared at the table full of empty glass bottles in front of her, and then the empty one in her grasp. She’d forgotten the bottle was in her hand, she’d nearly dropped it. She did her best to add it to the collection on the table before reaching to her side for another. Her hand found nothing but more sofa. Great, she was out of booze. She contemplated heading towards the door to see if the tavern was still open. However, the dizziness that overcame her the second she thought about standing up told her she’d had too much to drink. Instead, she repositioned the cushions of the sofa, ready for her to sleep on it.

Something in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. She turned to watch a man slowly sit in the wooden rocking chair that had somehow appeared during Staff’s visit. Her vision wasn’t good enough to pick up any real details about the man other than his black clothing and hair. What she did notice however, was the blade he was balancing on his knee.

“A fine blade you have over your mantlepiece.” He spoke as he slowly examined the blade from afar, “A sword can often tell when another powerful sword is in its presence. The fact that mine can sense its power means it must have once been a truly legendary sword.”

“Who are you?” She managed to blurt out. She was beginning to get a headache, and the urge to throw up was slowly building.

“Shame about the damage. Clearly it must have clashed with a blade of even more power, and I can only think of one type capable of that.” He muttered as he turned to face her. Her eyes managed to focus on the sword resting on his knee. Her eyes quickly blinked in surprise. There was only one type of blade like that. Pure black with an intricate pattern of a dragon on the hilt. Without a second thought she was on her feet with her sword drawn. Now was a very bad time to be blind drunk. The man simply smiled as he too got to his feet, “So you have seen a blade like this before. How interesting.”

“For what reason do you come into my home with such a blade?” She asked, struggling to keep her fighting stance steady, “I have no quarrel with you.”

“You walked between two enraged Gods and lived to tell the tale. That feat alone got my attention but…” Edward paused as he glanced at her blade resting on the mantlepiece again, “You’ve faced a Dragon Sword before… and somehow survived that as well.” He realised.

“What do you want from me?” Edward smiled at this.

“The name is Edward. Edward Clawson. What I want, is whatever power allowed you to beat a Dragon Sword so that I can use it against the admins.”

“Edward?” Cathie muttered, “Clawson?” Edward frowned at her questions. She seemed more transfixed on his name than the rest of his statement.

“I take it my reputation precedes me.” He confidently boasted, yet he switched back to a level-headed caution as he noticed Cathie’s troubled look fail to vanish. No… something about his name was disturbing her, and it was more than his reputation for sure.

“I take it you have much to say to me…” She muttered. Her face turned pale, but not just because of the drinks she’d had. She seemed timid, almost fearful. Deep within Edward’s mind, a familiar nagging sensation began to kick and struggle. The sensation quickly vanished but was present just enough for him to notice.

“Have… we met?” He asked her. Cathie’s eyes widened with surprise.

“You haven’t found your sister yet, have you?” She responded. Edward blinked in surprise. How on earth did a complete stranger know anything about his sister?

“My sister died many years ago at the hands of the admins.” Edward answered, “You seem to have a concerningly dangerous amount of information about me.” He added as he raised his Dragon Sword and pointed it her way. At the sight of the clear threat, Cathie’s face firmed up. Her bloodred eyes focused as she raised her own blade in response.

“I’ll give you one chance Clawson… abandon that foul blade.” She growled like a tiger primed to pounce on its prey.

“I’d prefer you hand over your legendary decoration over there.” Edward responded as he nodded to the mantlepiece sword.

“Pursuit of that kind of power will only get you killed.”

“We’ll see.” Edward smirked as he began to reach for the sword on her mantlepiece. However, before he could even touch it, he quickly moved back to avoid a swing from Cathie’s poorly aimed sword.

“Afraid that sword means more to me than anything.” She hissed as she moved between Edward and the sword, “I’ll die before I let you have it.”

“You really think you can stand a chance against me without wielding that damaged blade yourself?”

Without any more words Cathie made a second swing. This time Edward went to block the attack, but the two blades never struck. Instead, he found Cathie’s blade slicing his left thigh. Her sword was now for some reason in her left hand instead of her right, where it had started.

With a wince, Edward backed up. Once more she went for a strike head on. This time Edward paid close attention to the attack. He watched the sword vanish from her left hand only to appear in her right, perfectly positioned for a stab. Before she could land the blow, Edward managed to sidestep it, “The dual wielding swap hands skill.” Edward realised, “Never seen it used on a two-handed weapon before, or used to switch with nothing…” He muttered, “Not a skill commonly mastered this far. Most consider it too much of a gimmick for actual combat.” Now that Edward had dodged an attack, she was open. Her lack of balance and overall awareness would be her downfall. He swung for her chest now that her sword was still pulling back from her last attack. Once more however, his blade failed to connect with anything. A clean cut on his left arm appeared as a blast of air nearly knocked him off his feet. Something had moved at lightning speed, and given he hadn’t hit his target, it had to be her. He quickly turned around to find Cathie behind him. Blood running down the edge of her blade. She seemed disorientated for a few seconds before she managed to steady herself. Moving at such speeds in her current state wasn’t a good idea.

“Missed me.” She taunted with a smile as she once more took a fighting stance.

“You seem eager to not come in contact with my blade. Smart, but you can only last so long.” He responded as a fire began to build up around his blade, “Burn.” He chanted as an eerily familiar magical power sparked to life within the blade. Staff’s favourite spell. A cone of fire bellowed from his Dragon Blade and ingulfed most of the house interior. The flames continued, shattering the rear house windows and setting the entire property ablaze. A gust of wind had made Edward’s ears twitch as the flames naturally dispersed. He lowered his weapon after his eyes caught no trace of Cathie or her weapon.

“Missed.” Cathie’s clear voice viciously spat from directly behind him. A pain swelled on his side. A cut made without him realising, only now registering to his senses. A deep cut into the side of his torso. Edward turned to find Cathie casually aiming her blade at his throat. Not so much as a single singed hair on her. She’d completely dodged his attack without him seeing. She now also seemed perfectly balanced, as if completely sober.

“Now how did you manage that?” He questioned as he stepped backwards into her house and brought his blade up to meet hers.

“You’re just slow.” She taunted. Edward lunged forwards to clash blades with her, but his blade met no metal again. He winced as a pain shot through his left arm. He examined it to find a clean cut on his forearm. His eyes snapped back to Cathie’s blade, where he watched his blood slowly vanish from the blade’s edge and drain into the red centre of the metal.

Her blade had switched hands again. He eyed how expertly she held the heavy blade with only the one hand, “See? Too slow.” She added. The two of them glared each other down for a few seconds as the raging fires continued to consume the surrounding house. Cathie tactfully glanced the sight of her unblocked doorframe in the corner of her eye. Her front door was wide open, likely how Edward had entered. She’d been too impaired to notice, but now that she’d gotten her blood pumping, her fighting instincts were kicking in. She was more or less fighting on complete autopilot, which wasn’t a sustainable strategy. She slowly began to back away. Through the open door, keeping her guard up, her eyes locked on Clawson, “Last chance to back down.” She then warned, “The next slice I make, I intend to kill with.” Edward glanced down at his lacerated left forearm. She’d been fighting to injure him this whole time. Yet he once again grinned. He aimed his blade directly at her once more.

“You might be able to dodge the flames, but can they?” He asked. Cathie glanced to her side to find a crowd of Elves either side of her. Presumably behind her as well. The villagers had come to spy the cause of the flames, unaware of the danger they were now in, “Burn.” Edward chanted, with the blade aimed both her way, and theirs.

Cathie let out a quiet sigh as she closed her eyes.

“You fool.” She quietly muttered as the flames roared towards her. Upon her mantelpiece, the grey, cracked blade that calmly existed, suddenly vanished. It was immediately replaced, with Cathie’s Blood Steel blade.

Edward blinked as he examined his surroundings. Pitch black, other than the flames of his spell that continued to burn forwards in a cone but no longer down the street of Freedom. A distant echo slowly began to draw closer and closer. A mad laughter. A woman’s laughter, yet it wasn’t Cathie’s voice. It resonated pure power.

“Oh, little Clawson.” The voice chuckled, “Cursed to face the Gods. You’ll need more than cheap tricks to challenge the Divine.” The flames parted perfectly in half. A shadow somehow darker than the pitch-black void, far off on the horizonless horizon. The shape of a dragon, but as tall as the Edge Mountains themselves. Perfectly in line with the parting of the flames, Cathie’s blood red eyes glared back at him.

“The admins aren’t the only ones you should fear… Clawson.” She quietly muttered as the grey paint on her blade peeled off in the heat. The painted-on crack vanished with it, revealing the all too familiar pitch-blackness of a Dragon Sword, “Smaller shadows fear not the light… but bigger shadows.”

In the blink of an eye, Edward watched as his own blade shattered like glass. A bloodred blur flashed before his eyes, and finally a piercing throb as a blade was thrust through his chest, all in the blink of an eye. The darkness surrounding them both crumbled. Revealing the frozen scene of the street. Cathie slid Edward’s body off her blood-soaked blade, before turning to see the unharmed villagers still behind her. They all pounced backwards, still reacting to the flames Edward had unleashed before, but they were no longer there. As fast as they’d reacted however, the villagers seemed to once again slow to the point that they held perfectly still. Frozen in place. Cathie’s eyes widened in fear. She’d seen such magic before. She turned to find the one man she couldn’t possibly take seeing her here and now.

Staff stood tall and still in her doorway. His eyes fixed on the pitch-black blade in her left hand. The blade itself radiated a black fire and aura that matched his own divine form’s radiant divinity, yet it slowly lowered the intensity, as the blade’s power hushed itself in his presence. Cathie remained frozen in sheer terror. Her feelings were spiralling completely out of control, but that was dwarfed by the hard reality that she knew all too well. The blade in her hand was a death sentence the second he’d seen it. A death at his own hands. A fact they both knew. His eyes shifted to hers. The icy cold as deep down as she could see, with the faint whispers of pain, but not like she’d seen in his eyes before. This was new pain, fresh pain. Fresh betrayal.

The adrenaline rush ended. Before Cathie could even finish processing the conflicting emotions racing through her mind, her dizziness returned with a vengeance. Her vision faded to black as she felt herself collapse.