Amnesia

[Dawnika Snow]

The unlikely duo stepped into the cold harshness that was the Frozen Fields. Snow crunched beneath their boots as they took their first steps. A chill instantly ran down the vigilante’s spine, reminding her to zip up her jacket and roll down her sleeves. Ballad, however, seemed prepared for a chilly adventure with the heavy clothing he wore. Dawn took his initiative and summoned a large purple scarf as quickly as possible, wrapping it around her neck posthaste.


“Bitch..” Dawn whispered to herself rubbing her hands against her arms to create some warmth through method of friction. She knew it would be cold, but this was worse than anticipated. Thankfully, there wasn’t a profound blizzard right now, so visibility was decent. The small veils of loose snow being blown in the wind made an exceptional smokescreen, though.


“It is rather unforgiving here, is it not?” Ballad asked giving Dawn a quick glance. His revolver was still firm in his hand.


“You can say that again.” She agreed. “I still like it more than that Nexus. At least there’s a general atmosphere of something.”


Seeing Ballad’s weapon drawn, the vigilante thought it might be a good idea to draw her own. The problem was that her current weapons were insufficient to the task in this weather. She would need a close-range arsenal for this.


“Hey, watch my six. I’m going to acquire some more weapons.” Ballad was confused with the adolescent's code, though he assumed it meant to protect her while she did what she needed to. The vigilante focused her ‘power’ or whatever it was that made her prime into her glove that was once the omnilium orb received from Omni. It took nearly an hour, but soon Dawn had summoned many new weapons: A shotgun - which replaced the sword on her back, a pistol, a combat knife and a belt of grenades. Moyashi disappeared into the ether, as the assassin had no room to carry it anywhere else.

The gunsmith observed all of these weapons. He seemed quite interested in weaponry, at least guns. The assassin smirked at her prowess and her companion’s expression towards it. “I can see my weapons interest you. Would you like a demonstration? All I need is a target.”

[Corporal Light]

His entire stomach turned inside out, threatening to push up bits of bile up his throat as he walked through swirling portal and into the Fields. For a few moments, everything was blurry and his head was light-heated. He stumbled to the ground upon taking a few steps forward. He dug his hands into the snow, taking some deep breaths in order to chill his throbbing, burning throat. A short puff of smoke flew through his scarf and sucked into his mouth. It took every ounce of his willpower not to cough, else he wretch up the still digesting Blood Ice Berry water he had drank at the fountain earlier.

He brought a glove to his face, smashing a piece of snow against it. He could feel his burning cheeks begin to cool and the bile in his esophogus vanish. He let out a loud snort as the snow tickled his nose. He groaned, looking towards Dawn. Everything was still practically indescribable, or as indescribable as was possible for someone who had walked into a portal not expecting to gain some kind of sickness from it, but he did manage to focus on one particular characteristic of her appearance: her purple scarf. That pinpoint was enough to, at least for the moment, knock him out of his motion sickness.

He hadn't seen a purple scarf in a long time. Hell, he had only seen one once or twice in his lifetime. The color could only be found on the strands of leathery hair on the multi-colored manes of Lykers, where all scarves came from. They were feline in appearance, but held the strength of more than two of the green-haired mammoths that roamed the "Desert of Snow" and held more than four times that ferocity. Only him and a few others could match their prowess in battle; every other member of his species would be smashed to the ground if they fought a Lyker one on one. His ears were still ultra-sensitive to their roars; it sounded like a metal string of a stringed instrument, played at a high frequency as well as a low frequency, and then layered over itself to create a metallic and synthetic aberration of what a mammal was supposed to sound like. 

He knew that Dawn was not from his universe, and thus what color her scarf was had no meaning or relevance, but he couldn't pull away from it. It was just such a rare sight to see that he wanted to savor it. Perhaps she wouldn't mind a trade?

She would.

Quiet, you... logic... spirit...?

The vigilante cursed, which Ballad responded to. He could properly see at this point, and so began to his ascent to a standing position. Snow fell from the sky at a moderate pace, but there wasn't enough to provide a true smokescreen for visibility. Squinting, he could discern faint traces of what appeared to be solitary trees and small inclines in the otherwise flat ground. Apart from that, however, he couldn't see anything else. The entire verse was barren.

It was oddly familiar...

“Hey, watch my six. I’m going to acquire some more weapons.”

He was just about what the hell her "six" was before she sprinted off behind a nearby boulder. Luckily, SPB chimed in, informing him that she essentially wanted him to protect her while she acquired her weapons. He was also about to ask how she was going to do that in the middle of an open field of snow when SPB answered his question pretty much as soon as he considered asking about it.

You are scarily fast at an-

Indeed I am. I give you my thanks for that observation.

Goddammit.

He took up a position a few feet or so away from the boulder, making sure to face away from it. The whole hour or so during his guarding period, he kept his ears focused so as to detect anything approaching. In the meanwhile, he amused himself by fiddling around with his revolver and scratching at the pound of wick he had in his pouch on his belt. He had to wonder how the girl managed to get, or perhaps make, guns as big and long and most likely efficient as the one's she had. He had sold them cheap in his home-world, but he had no reason to believe her home-world did the same. The method of constructing the guns also looked different. His revolver only had so much black metal on it before it just turned into a rudimentary wood and leather finish. Hers, on the other hand, were crafted by those who were perhaps not beyond his skill level, but very, very close. SPB had not answered these thoughts, so he could only assume he didn't know either.

His thumb flicked the hammer of his revolver again and again and again and again. He hoped Dawn was almost done with her summoning.

Sure enough, he heard her step around the boulder. He turned to face her.

His jaw promptly dropped to the fucking floor.

Exotic weapons lined her every form -what looked like one of her long automatic carbines was on her back, followed by what looked like one of his revolver prototypes was holstered near her side, and discolored orbs that could have been literally anything lined her waist as they hung from a belt-, and his eyes were bright enough that it could light up a whole cave. Holy fucking crap, how did HE not think of weapons like these? They made his revolver look like a goddamn joke! Hell, compared to them, it probably WAS.

He didn't even respond to Dawn's sentence until literally more than fifteen seconds later. He flinched, glancing back up to her face. She was smirking. He frowned at her.

"'Interest' is a very, very big understatement, miss Snow. A very, VERY big one." He almost dove to grab the one on her back, but held back. "I yearn to see them in action, goddammit! There's bound to be something worth hunting in these Fields. Something like a..."

A troll.

"A troll. Yeah, a troll."

[Dawnika Snow]

As Ballad seemed entranced with her arsenal, Dawn was sure how to react to his silence. While waiting for a reply, she returned a confused glance. Perhaps his home world was not so familiar with modern technology. She had assumed, seeing as how Ballad carried a revolver, that his society was advanced enough to know a gun when they saw one. On the other hand, the mere sight of her rifles and other weapons made his jaw drop into the snow. After many seconds, Ballad finally responded.

“I yearn to see them in action, goddammit! There’s bound to be something worth hunting in these fields, something like…” Ballad paused to think of anything that would be a suitable mark, “A troll.”

Dawn smirked a bit. She wasn’t very familiar with mythical beasts like trolls, but she knew the only thing she needed to know - Trolls bleed, they die and they’re not morally good. A perfect target. The assassin pulled the carbine from its holster on her back and held it ready for combat. “Trolls is it is then.” She replied stomping off ahead of her cohort, who walked slightly faster than normal pace to catch up. It seemed Ballad was too excited of this new experience to refrain the rudeness of being assertive with questions, and Dawn was too much of a bragger to not boast about how fucking awesome she was. His first question actually reminded her that her equipment had not been properly loaded.

“How do they work, precisely?” He asked, eyeing the black rifle in her hand. It’s deathly appearance reminded Ballad of crows somehow.

The vigilante grabbed a magazine from her pack which separated all her ammo by weapon accordingly. She held out the small block of metal that housed rifle bullets for the gunsmith to see. “Unlike your revolver, bullets are fed through a rifle by something called a magazine - this here in my hand.” She explained, “It goes here.” With a satisfying click sound, the magazine locked into place and cocked back the bolt. “Pulling this here, loads the next bullet into the chamber.”

The green gunsmith couldn’t form words to explain how awestricken he was. His revolver seemed as useful as a butter knife to cut steak compared to what was the steak knife in the metaphor. Seeing as how Ballad was speechless, she continued.

“This is an Assault Rifle, as I explained in the Nexus. A preferable weapon for longer ranged encounters.” She placed it back where it belongs and pull her sniper rifle out of its holster. “This is my baby, a sniper rifle. I named it Epsilon Oriens. It is designed to fire heavy duty bullets from over a thousand meters away. A well aimed shot is capable of blowing off limbs with .50 caliber bullets.”

After loading the sniper with its respective ammo, she snatched up the shotgun where her sword previously rested. “This is a shotgun. The beauty of CQB. It takes ammo called shells or slugs, and fires in a wide area called a spray. It’s loaded in the bottom and pumped to ready the next shot.” She explained as she loaded each individual shell in the barrel. “And lastly is the pistol. It works practically the same way your revolver does, without the revolver and instead a magazine. So, what do you think?” She asked as she replaced the pistol with her shotgun, ready to blow away anything that might randomly attack them.

[Corporal Light]

What is a troll?

A hideous creature unique to folklore, typically of Norse or Scandinavian mythology. They usually inhabit isolated mountains and cave structures. Given your species lack of inclines on your own planet, it is perfectly reasonable for you not to know this. Nevertheless, it is disappointing.

...Thanks...

He bounded off after his partner, his eyes more or less squarely on the arsenal she carried on her body. She was moving much faster than normal, of which Ballad could understand why, judging by her “assault rifle,” as she had called it, having been removed from its holster and held firmly in her hands. How such a contraption could even work was a question of the ages and one he wanted an answer for post haste!

His eyes settled on the black colored rifle she was wielding. The entire damn thing was an engineering masterpiece, despite half of them being unrecognizable; if the girl had such confidence in it, then it was purely factual for it to be something worthy of praise. Examining it would be like examining a fossil or an ancient text; it was an opportunity that had to be taken. Yet it held another resemblance which brought him nothing more than a feeling of slowly building dread that flowed through his body. It sort of resembled a crow, one of the only avian creatures in his land. They were not predators by nature, but their very presence spelled doom, as they often trailed the tails of the Lykers to mooch off of the carrion they leave behind. A nearby crow was rarely a good sign.

Against his better judgement, he had asked the question without much care for manners or etiquette. He focused on trying to figure out how the damn thing worked rather than what it meant, which helped him to ignore the sense of unease he got from staring at it too long. She stopped and proceeded to explain, in detail, how each of her weapons worked. As she demonstrated, his eyes twitched and his shoulders slumped in astonishment. He couldn’t deny it. He had met someone with weaponry that far exceeded his own in every way, shape and form.

It felt… he didn’t know what to feel. On one hand, he was looking at contraptions that were impossible by his own calculations of how a gun should have been made. Such things were like magic, or like a religious text. It shouldn’t have been real. It shouldn’t exist! On the other hand… its very existence invalidated everything he knew about gun craftsmanship.

“Can… Can I have that?” he said, pointing at the Oscurità she had on her back after she was done explaining how the weapons functioned, “Can I just… take that? And... not give it back? Ever?”

He slithered his hand toward the black assault rifle. The ebony-haired vigilante grabbed the gun from her back and shoved it into Ballad’s arms, not so politely.

“You can borrow it for now. I expect to have it back later.” She said as she loosened some magazines from her pack. “You’ll need these. Click the button on the side to auto-eject and just place the new one in. Pull the bolt and continue shooting.”

He nodded as he looked at the magazines. He lifted the assault rifle. It was actually rather heavy, at least when compared to his lighter revolver. It was practically impossible to use it one-handed, leading to him stashing his revolver away in his holster. He took her magazines, placing them in various places along the belt inside his jacket. He pressed the button on the side, hand sliding underneath the rifle and catching the magazine as it fell. He brought the mag to his face, examining it. He glanced inside. Bronze bullets of a size bigger than the bullets inside his revolver lay within. He let out an approving grunt before he slammed it back into the rifle, cocking the bolt back.

“I promise that I will ensure that your masterpiece of a weapon receives no harm, miss Snow.” He said, lowering the rifle so that the barrel pointed at the ground.

Dawn nods to this and grabs the just-as-black sniper rifle from the other holster on her back. “Just make sure I don’t get shot in the ass.”

“I assure you, the only possibility of your posterior being perforated by the bronze bullets inside your master-class weaponry would only be if someone else had murdered me and had requisitioned this rifle for their own purposes.”

The vigilante pinches her nose at this response. “You’re pretty dense aren’t you? I’m saying watch my back. And, damn, you use a lot of extravagant words.”

“I was being sarcastic in nature, miss Snow. I am well aware of what you meant,” he said, letting out a sudden, short stint of laughter, “and, uh… yes, that is correct. I… don’t quite know why yet.”

“...You aren’t so bad after all, Ballad. Now just prove you’re a decent shot.” She smirked surveying their surrounding once more.

He smiled behind his scarf, proceeding to walk forward. “Trust in me, miss Snow. You will find my talent to be most commendable.”

He looked around. The snowstorm that had surrounded them an hour earlier was dying down some, making it so that it wasn’t a total impossibility to gather details of the environment. The cold still made him shiver and the snow still caked the top of his hat and the confines of his clothes, but it was at least bearable. For the most part, the whole landscape was a blanket of snow, with almost nothing of note. In the distance, however, was a sea of green. His eyes widened and glowed for a short moment before they dimmed again.

“A forest.” Both Dawn and Ballad said those words. They glanced at each other for a second before walking forward, the green gunsmith leading the way.

----------------------

“Have I told you about my own weaponry yet, miss Snow?” The gunner brushed a leaf-covered branch out of the way, crunching brown and dead leaves underneath his boot. He glanced around, assault rifle in hand, for any sign of life in the woods.

The whole place was slightly darkened due to the sheer size of the trees above and the amount of leaves that blocked whatever sunlight broke through the darkened clouds in the sky. It was nothing like the dying, wrinkled old trees he would regularly find on his home planet. It was hard to imagine there could be so much green in any one place, especially in the canvas of white that was the Fields and his home.

“I don’t believe so, my gun-loving friend. I did notice your pea-shooter though. It’s a cute accessory for you. Like a bow with a dress.” She mocked at first, scanning behind them to be sure they would not be ambushed easily. Her ocean blue eyes scaled across the landscape behind them like those of a hawk. “I merely jest. Your revolver looks like a trusty weapon. Do you have anything else?”

“As inferior as it may be, I do not believe it should be underestimated,” he said after a brief pause. He glanced around, observing the bushes they walked past. He chuckled at her joke. “As for additional weaponry, I don’t… think… so…”

He wasn’t so sure now that he thought about it a bit. He patted his belt, feeling an unfamiliar bump along his right side. He opened up his jacket, whipping out the item. He stared at it, a wave of memories flooding his mind.

“Ah, yes! I do! Two, in fact. Both very… effective weapons, if I do say so myself.”

“Whatever works for you friend. I prefer to dip my knowledge into more weaponry. It makes you unpredictable as an assassin.” As she mentioned that last word, a spike felt as if it had been ran through Dawn’s head. She remembered being an assassin now, but that was about the limit of memory gain. As for who she worked for or where, it was still a mystery. “Shit..” She cursed under her breath placing her palm on her forehead. “That hurt.”

He was about to respond when a flash of pain surged through his head. Electric sparks fried his veins as smoke billowed out from the sleeves of his coat. He saw fire. He started to tremble at the sight until he realized it was not what he had originally thought was burning. It was an unfamiliar building made out of wood and stone that was ablaze, with the all too familiar stench of decaying bodies nearby. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he was standing right outside it, staring at it, with a flamethrower in his hand.

He hyperventilated, his eyes glowing a bright gold. He glanced down at the item in his hand. It was the same thing.

He stashed it away and brought a gloved hand to his sweating forehead. It could not have been him. No, it could not. The spirit inside his head was playing tricks on him. Feeding him memories that were not his own and could not have been his own. He did not do that. It was not true.

“‘Ey!” Dawn called out to her companion. “Are you alright? I think my memory is starting to come back.”

He gulped. “...Far from it, friend. Far… far from it...…”

“Are you good to continue? Should we stop?” Dawn didn't lower her guard.

“...Yes, I… I’m fine.” He said, tightening his hold on her assault rifle, “let us… continue forward…” He sounded quieter than before.

They continued walking, not saying a word to each other for a period of time. There was still no sign of life; there wasn’t even a chirping of birds or the distant cries of a deer or anything that resembled an animal trotting along in the snow or dashing out of a bush. There had to be SOME kind of wildlife or SOMETHING in these woods, right? It was like the whole forest was dead; the thought of that did not put his mind at ease one bit.

He glanced back at Dawn. She herself was looking around, her grasp on her sniper rifle firm. During his flashback, he had almost forgotten about what she had said.

“You… You said you were an assassin, right?”

“Yea, I murder for money.” She scratched her head trying to pull up more memories. “It might be why I died in the first place and the cause of this amnesia.”

“I… I see…” A patch of smoke emerged from his coat sleeve again. He coughed after inhaling it, the gas stinging his eyes. “How.. How did you get into the business in the first place? Doesn’t seem like something you’d just… be.”

“Some people are just born to kill. Before I came here, I only knew how to use a scoped gun before I came here.” She explained. “But I needed to learn to protect myself. So I trained by killing people whom I thought deserved to die.”

He remained silent for a few moments before he responded. “...Understandable, I suppose…” He looked away from her. “H-...How did you do it?”

“How did I do what? Learn to kill? Train? By simply putting finger to trigger. It's not so difficult.”

“It can’t be that simple. Removing another from existence… that isn’t an easy thing to do.”

Dawn goes quiet for several seconds before saying anything in response. “...Sometimes, it's necessary, or else people you love die…”

He himself does not speak at all. The gears in his head turned for a few moments before he talked again. “I… I understand. I just… I only wish it was not necessary. That people like you were not needed anywhere. People like us.”

“You and me both, friend. You and me both.”

He nodded. He glanced around, the world having gone still throughout their conversation. There wasn’t even any wind or snow or anything. All that was there was a silence so loud it pierced his ears. Nothing was alive for seemingly miles on end.

He heard the rustling of leaves.

He halted, his head turning towards the noise. One of the bushes was shaking. He glared in its general direction.

Staring back at him, without blinking, were two sets of golden eyes, black slits running down the middle like a cat’s. He lifted the assault rifle, pointing it at the bush.

“Stalker!” he shouted, the noise causing both the pair of eyes to blink and the woman next to him to flinch. “We are both aware of your presence inside that hedge of plant matter. Reveal yourself at once!”

Slowly, the golden-eyed creature stood up from the shrubbery. It was coated in leather and green-skinned, with matching colored, bushy hair on its head. It had two curly trunks that jutted out from its mouth and a nose of epic length. It looked oddly familiar to him.

“A troll.” Dawn and Ballad nodded at each other as the woman raised her sniper rifle, looking around a bit more. The gunsmith, meanwhile, closed in on the creature, a poisonous glint in his eyes as his finger pushed dangerously close against the trigger.

“...It’z you…” the troll finally spoke. The rifleman paused.

“You’re familiar with me?”

“Ya have… a reputation wit’ da locals.”

He kept his eyes trained on the troll, but he could hear leaves crunching nearby. The sound was coming closer. He looked back at Dawn for a brief moment. There was a hint of concern in her eyes as the sound reverberated around the forest. She was pointing her rifle in various directions, evidently trying to find the source of the noise.

“Elaborate…” he replied, looking back at the troll.

The troll said nothing. Instead, three more sets of golden eyes became visible. Three more trolls, armed with bows and axes, appeared from behind the trees in front of the gunsmith. They marched toward him, hands tight on their weapons. Ballad stepped back a few paces as he pointed his rifle at each of them in a vain attempt to keep them back.

“We’ll give ya a taste, mon.” Their bushy-haired leader said as he withdrew a knife from his belt.

There was a crack of lightening, followed by the deafening tinnitus. He traced the source of the noise back to Dawn. Smoke billowed out of the barrel of her sniper rifle, which pointed down the way they came at the now headless troll.

He did not waste time thinking about that. He pulled the trigger, letting loose a barrage of bullets at his assailants.

[Dawnika Snow]

Dawn placed her headphones over her ears and flipped on some music as soon as her enemies came into view. Within the time it took for Ballad and the apparent leader of the group of trolls to talk, she was able to aim down a target for a instantly lethal shot. Her breathing ceased for a few seconds and she crouched down to her knee. With careful precision, the cross-hairs locked on between the poor monsters eyes.

Click-BOOM!

Blood splattered against the snow viciously, painting it with the color of crimson. The sheer force of the bullet blew a much larger hole than the diameter of the metal casing into the troll’s head, killing him nigh instantly. Unfortunately, that is probably the only shot she’ll get easily with her sniper rifle. With satisfying sliding-metal sound, she loaded the next shot into the chamber and replaced the sniper with her shotgun.

A pump of her shotgun cocked ready to fire. Trolls closed in on the assassin with malicious intent in their eyes. The fear that most would be stricken with did not bother her in the slightest. She simply planted her feet into the snow and aimed from her hip, pointing the heavy-duty weapon at her opponent and waiting for a closer-ranged target. Closer and closer it came, screaming its battlecry as it charged the small woman with axe over-head. Just a little more…

BANG

Another loud shot sounded just he swung his huge axe over the ebony-haired assailant. His meaty body fell over limp, dropping his axe into the whiteness with a puff of snow. The vigilante pumped her shotgun to ready the next shot. Most charged Ballad with some kind of repressed vendetta. It would be best to take some of the heat off of him. Putting the shotgun back on her belt behind her, she reached for her pistol and knife. Pistol in her right hand, knife in her left. She dug her feet into the snow and bolted towards her companion quickly. Loud explosions of gunshots sounded as she fired at the enemy in motion. Not many shots landed, but enough of them did to get some of their attentions.

Two more of the large creatures assaulted the assassin. Child’s play. As the first one closed, she bursted forward, sliding under his legs, stabbing the poor monster’s calf with her blade. With a quick turn as he fell to his knees in pain, she jumped on the troll’s back and stabbed her knife into his spine. Bloody holes lined his back as her pistol bullets pierced through his skin. The other troll, in vain attempt to save his brother, raised his club over the assassin, swinging it down at her. She was agile enough to get away quickly, causing him to attack his ally. That attack surely brought him to his last breath. Angered by the slipperiness of this tiny, human female, the second troll chased after her in blind rage, swinging his large club around frantically to increase his chances of hitting her. Or, at least that was his logic behind it.

Dawnika saw no math in that system, easily zipping around his attacks one way or another. Focused on dodging the attacks made it difficult for her to reload though. She would need to break away and load her pistol or there would be no progress. As another overhead swing came for her cranium, she got a bit ballsy and took a huge risk. Instead of side stepping like any normal person would have done, she rushed forward, stabbing Gladium in to the troll’s beefy wrist. Luckily, the makeshift mace didn’t connect with her, but the bludgeoning force caught her hand as the steel sliced at his veins. Instinctively, the ugly creature dropped the wooden stick with a rock tied to it. Dawn found her time to reload her gun as he tried to stop the bleeding with his other hand. Not that it mattered when three fresh bullets moved from Dawn’s gun to his skull. The troll stood motionless for a few seconds before falling over limp on his back. Blood painted the snow crimson when his body met the blanket of cold. Dawn lowered her weapon and took a deep breath. That was all the trolls that attacked her. She turned to see how Ballad was doing; to see if he was in need of assistance.

[Corporal Light]

He almost fell flat onto his ass from the recoil. Large, golden bullets zoomed towards the group of trolls in front of him. Most flew right by them, but as he steadied his stance to stop his fall, he heard a couple of them screaming. He removed his finger from the trigger, staring at the rifle for a few moments. He barely registered the fact that the trolls were still there.

Eventually, he returned to reality. He glanced around. More and more trolls were closing in. How they had managed to stay completely silent and hide was a mystery he would have to solve later. He swiveled his gun, pointing it at any troll that got too close. He couldn’t remember how much his rifle carried, but from how light it felt, it couldn’t have been much. Two of the trolls hid their wounds as they snarled at him, snake-like eyes staring into him. The hedge-haired leader slid a finger along his knife; a mace-wielding soldier chuckled.

They encircled him. His finger settled on the trigger.

Gunshots, but they were not his own. One of the bleeding trolls fell to the earth. The rest turned their heads towards her. He did not hesitate.

As their leader barked an order at them, all but three found themselves a bleeding mess of a carcass. Their leader rushed towards the gunsmith as the other two went to deal with Dawn.

He squeezed the trigger. No bullets came out. The troll leader leaped forward, tight grip on his knife as it thrust downwards towards his head.

Ballad lifted the rifle, blocking the weapon in midair. He met the being’s golden, hate-filled gaze for a brief moment. It was like looking at a savage beast, and one that had to be put down.

He brought up a boot and slammed it into its pelvis. The troll hopped back, howling in pain; as it jumped, however, he pulled his knife back. The assault rifle flew out of Ballad’s hands and clattered against the ice-covered ground.

He staggered forward and reached for his revolver. The troll landed on a patch of ice and, in a swift, controlled manner, jumped back like a frog after a brief slide. While in the air, it reached into a pouch on its belt and removed several objects from it. The gunsmith didn’t know what they were until, with a speed that defied all logic, they zipped towards him. Ballad lifted his arm. Most of them collided into his coat sleeve. One, however, slipped past.

His head flinched back as the dart slammed into his cheek, just below his eye. He brought a hand up to the dart. His cheek vibrated; it felt like something was crawling inside of him. His face hardened, locking his features into place. His mitt ripped the dart out of him, a pus-colored liquid dripping out of the needle. He crushed it into sand as smoke rose from his coat-sleeve.

The troll leader, meanwhile, had moved onto the next biggest threat: Dawn. As Ballad’s face swelled up like a balloon until his rock-hard cyst covered his eye, the troll leader relentlessly assaulted the assassin. Neither could get a hit in, however.

Dawn charged forward, stabbing at the troll as she raised her pistol. He responded by blocking the dagger with his arm. He bit his lips to choke down the pain. Raising his hand, he grabbed a hold of her pistol as a hail a gunfire sailed right past his head. He raised his leg and kicked at her. She hopped back, but not before the troll straight up knocked her gun out of her hands. It crashed into the blood-soaked snow.
The assassin grit her teeth. The two circled each other, knives in hand. They studied each other, observing their stances, watching for holes. There was no sound but the crunching of leaves and snow under their feet.

Then, she zoomed forward, knife raised.

Her feet caught a patch of ice. It took every ounce of her agility not to fall flat on her face. But while she did not fall, the troll did not wait for a recovery. He grabbed her arm as she got closer and pulled her forward. Her eyes widened as her vision was filled up with blood.

She fell back, two massive trenches of blood that went from the start of her cheek to almost the start of her ear. She cupped her face, trying to blink away the blood as it slid towards her eye. She stared up at the troll. He was smiling, blood dripping from his tusks. He raised his knife.

His head exploded into a fine, red mist.

Dawn looked behind her. Smoke rose from the barrel of Ballad’s revolver. It took him a few moments to get out of his stance before he half-walked, half-stumbled towards her. The left side of his face was nothing more than a massive, yellowish, bulbous sac. His crimson scarf was in his hands, revealing a set of jagged, shark-like teeth within his drooling, obscenely stretched mouth.

He finally reached her. He landed on his knees.

“Y-You… alright?” he said, his words long and drawn out as he fought his locked up, metallic jaw.

[Dawnika Snow]

Dawn’s hand covered her face, muffling her voice slightly from her palm blocking her mouth.

“Just a cut, nothing terrible.” She said cringed in pain. “You’re fucking face looks it decided a second head was necessary.”

“I… can han...dle it…” His jaw refused to budge, forcing him to move it up and down with his hand during particular moments of drawn out speech. The green sac on his head pulsed a heartbeat, pounding viciously against his cheek and eyes. The gunsmith did not flinch, nor really react, to the vibrations and pulsations of the cyst.

Dawn gave him a weird glare, “Uh, should we like...pop that thing?” She summoned her katana in her hand.

He took several steps back, lifting his hand up in the air to guard his face. “Ho... ld on! Care… ful with that!” He let out a low groan, his jaw locking in place and his throat clogging up. He was breathing faster and faster with every second that passed; the sac seemed to grow larger, gorging on the skin and muscles of his face.

“Don’t worry, I probably won’t stab your brain or anything stupid.” She said coming closer. “It’s going to suffocate you.”

“You…’re the… one blee... ding out! Don’t… worry ab… out me…” He hyperventilated, gasping for breath. He fell to his knees. The sac filled up.

Dawn approached her green skinned ally and reached out with her sword to his cyst to avoid the splash zone. “Hold still.”

He did not move. It seemed there was no arguing with her. With quick jab, the blade pierced his skin, spewing puss all over the snow. Dawnika had to look away in order to refrain from puking.

He made no sound as the sac slowly deflated. He could the air return to his lungs; the black spots that had shown up in his vision went away. After a minute or so, all the was left of the cyst was a huge flap of saggy flesh. A part of the left side of his face had been eaten up entirely, though. The lines of his skull were clearly visible, and his skin was far too stretchy to be normal; just a single tap formed a permanent dent in his cheek.

Dawn lets her sword disappear back into thin Omnilium and bends down next to Ballad. “Damn that was disgusting. Are you okay?” She asked trying to avoid the sight of the pus that puddled the ground.

He brought a gloved hand up to his face, pressing against it. It left a fine imprint as he removed it. He tugged at the flabby skin, the dead bits ripping off without much of a hassle nor any amount of pain. While he certainly didn’t appear dead, it was impossible to distinguish his formerly cyst-covered face from that of a mummified corpses.

“I’m… I’m fine… thank you…” he said. He looked up towards Dawn’s still bleeding face. “Your face… it’s still bleeding…”

“I’ve bled before, not that big of a deal.” The vigilante says standing back up slowly and looking around at the dead trolls that littered the snow. “What a waste of life. They challenged two primes with such a small group. Fools.”

Ballad didn’t even bother trying to look at the bodies. His attention was squarely on her wounds. He glanced down towards his hand that clutched his red scarf.

“Hey…” he said, moving the scarf towards Dawn, “take this. Wrap it around your wounds. It… It will hide the blood.”

The raven-haired assailant looked down at her unlikely ally - if had not been for the absence of amnesia, she may have torn his face off at first glance - and looked at the scarf he offered her. She sighed and took the scarf wrapping it around her arm where one of the worst cuts was on her body. If the cut on her face did not scale past the bridge of her nose, she would have wrapped that one. “Thanks.” There wasn’t much sincerity in that thank you, but Ballad could find something in it.

The vigilante looked down at her rifle that lay peacefully in the snow just a few meters away. The white blanket disturbed by her footsteps painted her black boots. She reached down and grabbed the rifle from the snow, dusting it off. “What do you think of it?” She asks Ballad as she slides the rifle back into it’s holster.

“The rifle?” he said, drawing himself away from one of the bullet-ridden corpses. He still could not believe that her weaponry had done all of that. “It’s very good. Damn good. If only I could’ve shot straight with it… then, well…”

He sighed. “Neither of us would be in a worse state.”

“I don’t blame you, I remember when I shot my first full-auto.” Dawn looks down at her waist at the grenades she kept ready. It wouldn’t hurt to show off, right? “Hey, “ She said pulling off one of the explosives and pulling the pin. A soft click made Ballad shutter, what was that tiny thing going to do? “Watch this.”

With a powerful chuck, she tossed the grenade at a tree not far from the two. The gnarled branches blew into bits as the explosion tore through the bark thoroughly. Wood splintered everywhere around the explosion. The tree stood, but a large, charred mark marred the trunk of the tree. It looked like a fire-breathing lizard had taken a healthy bit out of the bark.

He watched as the grenade flew through the air. As soon as it landed, though, he wished he hadn’t. A part of him knew what was going to happen before it did, but the fiery explosion still rocked him to the core. A patch of smoke billowed out of the sleeves of his coat; his eyes turned snow white. For a brief moment, all he did see was fire. Red, all-consuming flames surrounding a charred carcass of a building. Screaming, there was so much screaming. The eye within the fire glared at him, hate filling the blackness of its pupil.

And, in the blink of an eye, the world returned to normalcy.

Nothing else had happened. It was just a deformed, ash-covered trees, the fragments of the grenade that had harmed it sticking out like spikes in the snow. No one else had been harmed. No one…

He realized he was hyperventilating. He shut his mouth.

“Efficient. I needed a field test anyways.” Dawn handled her weapon rather casually compared to her companion. She smirked at the results of her new weaponry. “They’re one of my favorites.” She explains as she turns to Ballad.

With her test all said and done, Dawn folded her arms and looked up at Ballad. “What now my green-skinned friend?”

“I… I’m not quite certain…” he said after a few moment’s hesitation. He looked around, eyes settling on the corpses strewn all around them. “I didn’t think past this.”

He was quiet, as was the girl before him. It was difficult to find much purpose for one’s actions without memory of a cause present. She ran her hand through her hair awkwardly in the silence. Whatever happened next, though, she would be ready to face it until this amnesia subsided.

[Dawnika Snow]

Ballad and Dawn were gathering their thoughts and beginning to head out before reinforcements came and found this bloody scene. Just as they had moved on from the gore ridden snow, a headache pulsed harshly and suddenly through Dawn’s brain. Her consciousness blacked out momentarily as a vision of a golden dinosaur that burped lightning. It absorbed her. The only thing Dawn felt was immense rage and hatred for the golden, wingless being and she was going to get payback.

Once she came back to her senses, Ballad was right in front of her, eyeing her with curiosity. “Hey, are you alright?” He asks with an expression of slight concern and disgust.

“I have to go.” Is all she says as she holds her hand out for her gun. “I have unfinished business that needs finished. Some of my memory has returned.” She explained. Although Ballad was reluctant to give up the high quality piece of equipment that was so generously lended to him, he managed to keep himself from stealing it and returned it to the rightful owner.

“I apologize for my abrupt change of pace but this is important.” She says before turning around, “Beuno Fortuna, Ballad.” With that last statement, Dawn’s wings spread gracefully and propelled her off the ground forcefully. The cold air blew past her face as she headed for the Nexus gate.