Crack.

Lucre eyed the roof as a beam bowed out. She didn't like what she was seeing. Someone was fighting on the roof, and their fight might bring the entire building down. She didn't want to be inside when that happened.

However, the swordsman made it impossible to leave.

The air around him practically boiled as he stood between her and Cragg. She thought to dig her way to the bottom floor, but the swordsman's eyes held her fast. He would strike the moment either she or Cragg showed the slightest vulnerability.

She licked her lips.

"Are you ready to die in this building?" She leaned forward with her shovel. "You want to live, right?"

Cragg gave her a confused look, tilting his head as he blinked at her. Lucre paid him no mind. She would escape if Cragg caught onto it or not. Then she could take the swordsman when he left the building.

"Whether I live or die is of no importance." Sayed held out one arm, and a second arm followed it, its form shaking in the boiling air. "What is the story of my life?"

"And you think you can take both of us?" Sweat dripped down Lucre's back, running from her shoulders to her legs.

She gulped down a dry lump in her throat. While the swordsman's blade burned bright, it couldn't generate this much heat in the room. Yet, she couldn't help but see a mirage of limbs around Sayed as he swung his sword.

"Oh, have no worry about that, brother." Sayed smiled, and a sudden chill crept up her spine despite the heat. "I do not fight alone."

As he said it, three figures stepped away from him. One was tall and lean, not as broad as the swordsman, wielding a single blade. The other was short, more a child than a man, and held a small dagger. Lucre blinked as she tried to understand what she was seeing.

"Brother's Bond."

"What are you doing?" Cragg lumbered forward, raising his hammer high. "Stop that! Hammer Crash!"

He brought the hammer down on Sayed in one swift blow, but it just passed through the swordsman. Sayed's form blurred, but the hammer passed through like nothing was there. Lucre's eyes widened. It had passed through precisely because nothing was there.

"Mirage," she hissed, her eyes roving around the room. "Illusions. Cragg! Keep an eye out!"

As she said it, the forms split off in different directions. Each one took a corner of a triangle around Cragg and Lucre. She couldn't know which one was which if she just had her eyes to rely on.

Lucre's curse allowed her a few things. It enabled her to dig through almost anything with the ease of a hot knife cutting through butter. It also gave her a sense of movement in solid objects around her. It wasn't perfect, especially with a lug like Cragg thumping around, but she could use it to locate the swordsman's real location.

Crack.

Another beam breaking above her also put a wrench in that idea. The building wasn't stable. The movements happening above would interfere with her senses. However, she had to try.

"Cragg!" she yelled, closing her eyes as the three figures took on stances. "Stop moving so I can find him!"

Thud.

Cragg's foot hit the floor as she closed her eyes, and in her mind, he lit up from his leg all the way to the top of his head in a flash of light in the darkness. However, as he stopped moving, only the aftereffect of his movement remained. She knew he was there, but until he moved again, she would not see what he was doing.

She didn't focus on Cragg, though. What she needed to see was how the Swordsman was moving. Her mind reached out to the far sides of the room, where each of the three illusions was taking on their stances. She hoped to find the swordsman there, but—

She didn't sense him at all.

"Impossible," she whispered, her eyes snapping open.

The illusions were still in place, still taking on their stances. However, the swordsman was either standing still and doing nothing or...she didn't finish the thought. He was not a runner. Nothing of what he had done showed him to be a coward.

"Demon's Circle!"

Crack. Boom.

The yell didn't come from the floor they were on. Lucre watched as the floor beneath Cragg erupted in a shower of splinters. Cragg didn't even get the chance to yell as he fell through the floor and down to the lower level. Lucre slammed her shovel into the floor. She needed to get down there. Sayed had copied her style and wasn't about to let him show her up.

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"That's my technique!" she yelled. "Floor Tunnel!"

The wood beneath her crumbled into dust, and she fell into the darker floor below. The wrecked desks around her provided a slide for her as she slid off one desk with her boots and landed on the hard wooden floor of the building.

Cragg lay to the side on his back, hammer cast to the side, and his eyes closed. In the few moments it had taken her to get down, Sayed had managed to dispatch him. She raised her shovel, ready to dive deeper into the ground beneath her, when the three illusions reformed around her.

"You are not running away, are you?" each illusion spoke with the same voice. "Do you want your story to end in cowardice? Defeat?"

Lucre licked her lips, and she cast her gaze around the room. It was then that she noticed the second hole in the ceiling. The swordsman had cut it in the confusion earlier, dropped to the floor below, and attacked Cragg when he gave away his position.

She narrowed her eyes. She didn't like that he had taken out Cragg so easily and done it by copying her. However, was her pride worth fighting him further? She could try and escape, dig down, and reach the sewers. Mister Deadman would come after her if she did, and then another Finger or Miss Malone if he failed.

She didn't like that.

Crack. Crumble.

"Why are you so dead set to fight in this collapsing building?" Lucre asked, lowering her shovel toward the ground as dust fell around them from the floor above. "Don't you value your life?"

"You already have my answer," the voices said. "My story is who I am."

"Floor—"

Ting.

The child had jumped at her from behind, and her shovel jumped forward like it had its own will. Lucre only barely kept hold of it, grabbing the shaft with her free hand. However, she wasn't out. She twisted on her leg, bringing the shovel's end around with all her strength, right into the child's illusion.

Clang.

The shovel vibrated as she hit something hard, right where the child's head should be. The vibrations showed her the swordsman, standing there with his sword in one hand and the back of his blade braced against his arm.

"I found you!" Lucre smiled, but it was met with the same wild grin on the swordsman's face.

"That you did." Sayed pushed against her shovel. "Perhaps one day, you will even find yourself my equal, brother."

Lucre squinted as she pushed harder against the blade, but it didn't move. There was no way that the swordsman was overpowering her. She had muscles built from years of hard work in the mines.

"Demon's Wind!"

The pressure released from her shove for an instant. In that instant, six blurring lines of metal came for her. She tried to jump back, but it was too late.

Ting. Crack.

Fire raced down her arms and legs as four slashes connected with her flesh. Flesh seared even as the blade hewed. Her shovel absorbed the upward slash at the cost of being cut in half. Her helmet absorbed the downward force.

Lucre stumbled backward, landing against a desk with her arms hanging onto the edge as her mind shook.

He had been faster than she expected. However, it was too late to complain. Her arms were like lead weights, and her legs didn't answer her call. Her shovel was gone.

"I guess you got me," she whispered.

"Do not sound so disappointed." Sayed turned from her, his illusions disappearing. "You are alive, and your story can continue."

"And what kind of story would that be?" Lucre asked, leaning her head back on the desk to see the ceiling shaking above her.

"Whatever story you wish it to be, brother. That is why we are all here."

Lucre closed her eyes but couldn't help the smile that crept across her face. If Mister Deadman, Miss Malone, and Lord Baccia didn't kill her for her failure, maybe she could try something different.

She had been a daughter, a digger, and a Knuckle. Maybe there was something else she could try. She just had to survive the entire building falling on her.

Sayed frowned but grabbed hold of the unconscious woman, dragging her to the building's entrance before returning for Cragg. While he understood them to be on the wrong side, that did not lessen the need for compassion. They were too weak to be threats, at least for now.

Cragg proved to be the harder to move. While the woman had been as tall as Sayed, she still had a feminine form. Cragg was closer to a boulder than a man, and it took Sayed rolling with all his might to get him to the broken doors. The entire building shook around him as he pushed Cragg the final time, and the man rolled out into the cobblestone street, only to land on his back.

Sweat soaked his brow as he stepped away from the building. He joined the two fighters on the opposite side of the street to get a better look at what was happening on the roof. The sight itself was both surprising and expected.

Alex stood on one side of the building's roof, and a long metal arm formed around his normal as he stood against a monster. A scorpion, forged of bone, skittered across the roof. Its legs were wide enough that it could barely charge, and its claws were easily the size of Alex's entire body.

"That must be the dead man." Sayed shook his head, recalling their adventure in Death's Yard from his restored memories. "I think I better stay down here for the time being."

"Aren't you going to help him?"

Sayed turned, spotting Bolton running at him from across the street. Sayed nodded at him, remembering that the man had helped but had also run from the fight. Sayed was thankful for the first but only slightly disappointed in the latter.

He had a complicated relationship with fights.

"I have full confidence in him." Sayed crossed his arms. "If he starts to lose, I will worry about it."

Bolton furrowed his brows and tilted his head. "What in tarnation are you on about? Don't you know that you don't have to fight everything solo?"

"I do." Sayed smiled. "There may be a time for that, but it is not now."

Bolton shook his head, licking his lips as he looked over the two unconscious fighters beside Sayed.

"What about those two?"

"They are safe for now." Sayed shrugged, trying to keep his focus on the rooftop fight.

Alex had jumped into the air, and the scorpion was trying to catch him with its tail. Sayed did not think that Alex could dodge in the air, but he was ready to be surprised. They had all trained the entire trip from Aherlow to Grim Aegis. All of the crew was full of surprises.

"Why not kill them?"

Sayed looked at Bolton as he eyed the two unconscious fighters. Sayed stepped between them, adjusting his sword in his hand. Bolton tore his gaze from the two and looked at Sayed with wild eyes.

"Why so?"

"They'll be a threat," Bolton said. "They'll come after you in the future."

"They may." Sayed nodded. "They may also not. It is not up for me to determine what they will do."

"And if they hurt you or one of your crew?"

"Then I will bear that burden. They lost their fights with me, and that is enough."

"You're all crazy." Bolton huffed before turning to look at the fight on the roof.

"Maybe we are," Sayed said, gripping his sword tightly. "But ending a tale when you do not need to is a dark path. It stains your story."

"Then mine's darker than black." Bolton spit.

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