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Petra stared into the tempest of insects, watching as the throng worked itself into an impatient frenzy. Behind her, she could hear Aliester protest, the image of his mortified expression after he'd backhanded him burned into her mind, but she was no longer listening. Something inside her churned with that same impatience, immune to logic and self preservation. The light pulsed somewhere behind the swarm, the whisper beckoning, and the moon hunter answered by narrowing her eyes. Although it was by no enchantment, but defiance, Petra took a slow step forward, another following in it's wake.

Do not do this. This is not the chance you seek to relieve your frustrations, nor extract revenge. The coward is right -- this is suicide.

'Being a hunter is suicide, Cain. We're pawns, expendable and completely replaceable. They send us out, and we fight until we kill every last one of them, or we die trying. And if we don't, they send us out again, and again, until finally one of those times we ******** up, and we don't come back.

She stopped only when she'd crossed a respectable distance, breaching five or so feet from where she had been standing before. Hefting her mace higher, she tightened her fingers on the handle, twisting them a little.

...there shall wait for you a place in the seventh circle of hell.

She didn't even bother to answer him that time.

Come and see.

In the fields the insects swarmed around the glow, and as Petra grew closer, it became clear the glow belonged to an item of sorts. An orb. The angry buzz of locusts filled her ears.


Within the barn, Aleister would hear the soft rustle of hay behind him, just in time to turn and see a vaguely humanoid creature, it's dried leather face smiling grimly. Without a word, the horrific scarecrow raised a hand, it's sickle-like claws shining dangerously in the dim light, and struck out at the hunter.

The funny thing was, even after stepping closer, the locusts didn't attack. The angry buzzing continued, the miasma of insects continuing to swarm around an unknown focal point, but despite her aggressive defensive posturing, not a single one ventured towards the waiting moon trainee. Petra's icy expression tightened a little, her midnight blue eyes narrowing as they flicked to watch a few of the insects as they circled. What was going on? She didn't understand -- there could be no mistaking that she'd met their challenge. They had beckoned her forward, and she had answered, clearly not only ready but eager to hear the sound of exoskeleton cracking beneath the spikes of her mace. They should have been feeding on her pride and over confidence, they should have descended upon her, envelope her with their sheer numbers, just as eager to tear her limb from limb. But they hadn't. They hadn't moved in the least, but to keep their multi-faceted eyes on her, darting in and out between each other with an almost inhuman elegance.

So what was keeping them in check? Why hadn't they moved?

The answer came as a flicker of light. It caught her eye almost immediately, drawing her attention back towards the center of the insect hurricane, her gaze instinctively focusing on the iridescent orb at its eye. She had long since given up being surprised -- after accidentally summoning a swarm of scorpion-tailed locusts with a stone tablet, she'd met her 'surprised' quota for the day -- but there was still a hint of suspicion lacing her narrowed eyes... suspicion, and intrigue. Petra waited a few breaths longer, watching the locusts' behavior before lowering her mace just a hair, taking another step forward.

'Come and see...'

Almost as soon as she took that step, there was a scream from the barn. A very human scream, one which there was no doubt belonged to Aleister. Twisting her head around, the moon trainee looked towards the barn, hesitating.

"Idiot," she muttered under her breath, her body still half turned towards the barn, clearly conflicted.

'Leave him. The coward has sealed his fate.' Cain rumbled in the back of her mind, 'Retrieve the orb.'

Petra's teeth clenched a little as she worked it over in her mind. The scream for help, Aleister's decision to retreat to the barn, the sound of his humming in the deafening silence, Stacey's clear preference for the Death hunter. It all flashed like a slideshow before her eyes in the span of half a second. Exhaling heavily through her nose, the moon trainee turned away, kicking off the dry, packed earth to dash towards the center of the locusts. As if anticipating this response, the buzzing intensifies, the creatures hovering before taking off towards her. The first to reach her was met with the crushing force of Petra's mace as she first swung it back before arcing it forward again diagonally, the crunch and squelch of guts filling the air. The force nearly knocked her backwards, sheer mass of the creature almost enough to throw her, but the moon trainee powered through it, her expression stony as she continues to dash through the insects. Her fear shield crackled with electricity as razor sharp stingers darted at her body, some glancing off, others snapping from the force, and her cold expression twitched a little as claws made it through enough to rake at her. Throwing up her mace again, she tried to clear the path a little more, slicing through the sea of bugs thick enough to drown in.

HP: 35/40
Turn: 1/3

The buzzing intensified the deeper she went, angrier as she crushed body after body with her mace. Petra's jaw clenched as she pushed a few steps forward, swinging again only to miss, flinching back as a locust clipped her shoulder. Blood had begun to seep into her eye from where its wing had sliced her brow, and she squeezed it closed, not letting go of her mace to brush it away.

She heard Aleister scream for her from the barn, even above the angry swarm, ignoring it as she crushed another body beneath the spikes of her mace.

HP: 22/40
Turn: 2/3

It hurt. A lot, as a matter of fact -- Cain's FEAR shield was protecting her from the brunt of the blows, from the poison which undoubtedly laced every scorpion-like stinger, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt. She was close now, so close she couldn't take her eyes off the glowing orb, so close that she just needed to take a few... more... steps... But the locusts were thicker here. Sensing the danger to their object, to whatever it was they were protecting, they swirled in a tight mass around it as if they were its atmosphere, so thick it didn't feel like there was enough air to breathe. She couldn't move without feeling wings or beating against her body, clipping her legs, hands, face -- and flesh that wasn't protected by clothing, and only then the buffer was only marginal. There was a moment where she had to pause her relentless onslaught assault, one hand darting up to swipe the blood out of her eye, but even that second's hesitation was too much. In that half a second, the time it took to suck in a sharp breath of hot, dusty air, the locusts which had been relentlessly pouring over her, most hovering just outside the radius of her mace, descended like a wave, crashing into her. In that first instant three huge bodies collided into her own, knocking her off-balance and sending her crashing the ground. The moon trainee barely caught herself in time, Cain skidding a few feet away as she let go to grab the earth as she fell, dirt and dried grass staining her palms.

But she was so close.

Lashing out through the dried grass, Petra snatched up her mace, scrambling off the ground. This time, she made no attempt to try to crush any of the locusts -- there was no hope of clearing them all, not with hundreds to replace the few she could kill. Instead, she crossed it in front of her head and tucked her chin, pushing through the blanket of buzzing insects, one hand stretched out in front of her. Only when she felt it against her palm did she close her fingers around it.

HP: 8/40
Turn: 3/3

"oof..."

The blast had knocked him back and the wind gone from his lungs. It took even longer for him to catch his breath and chance moving outside. Unsure of why the scarecrow dissipated or why there was that deafening silence again.

He slowly crawled to the barn door, peeking out. The Death trainee was worried there were still bugs out here.

All it took was a moment, between one breath and the next, for the entire world to shatter. The orb in Petra's hands flew apart into a thousand shining pieces. The spell of power broken, her body and mind collapsed as one. The second wave of force knocked Aleister out cold.

Minutes later Stacey exited the old farmhouse and wordlessly took in the scene. At the center of row upon row of flattened wheat, he found the Moon trainee. The Death trainee was within sight, beside the barn. Locusts. And...

The Death assistant kneelt down and carefully began to pick up pieces of glass that held a fading glow. Broken artifact. Wouldn't Caelius be pissed. A small smile played across his lips as he finally took a moment to check for a pulse. The girl's body was alive, the boy's as well. No casualties this time. He went back to collecting the glass pieces, and soon enough found the pieces of stone they had pieced together.

Eventually, after all the evidence was secure, Stacey called in for a med team. Aleister would wake later that evening, bruised and aching, but nothing too dire. Petra would awake the next day, scarred but physically whole. For the most part her mind remained intact, the moment of perfect power and clarity was as lost to her as the power itself.

Except...in the middle of the night, or those quiet times when her mind was the most open, most defenseless, a remnant of that moment would slip through the cracks, and remind her that she was infinitely less than she once was.

Stacey didn't bother to call either of them up for a mission report, and not long after he disappeared from Deus altogether, never to be seen again.

Months later, Petra would find a petite black woman with short blonde hair knocking on her door with impatient authority.

"The name's Edith Carr, I'm your division leader. I'd shake your hand but as you can see..." she held out a large white box. "Your Intermediate's jacket. Before he went AWOL, Stacey had left a recommendation for your advancement. He said you could handle what would be thrown at you, and maybe you can. Your records are decent, not stellar, but they'll do. He also recommended your transfer into Death, something about having the right kind of priorities."

Edith hadn't smiled once yet, and she wasn't smiling now, "Well, I won't be forcing you to make any decisions now, but should you last long enough to get promoted again? You had better have the right mindest for the job, or I will remove you from my division, we clear?"