After slipping away from the chaos of the Diviner's duel with Bone Buster, Talia kept to the narrow veins of Tan'thalon's alleys. The city dwarfed An'rakar in size, its spires and towers clawing at the sky, but its bones—the arches of stone, the tight-knit streets—still echoed the architecture she knew.
The great capital of Xaerona. Heart of magitech. A fortress and a beacon, they called it. From the alleys she could see only glimpses of its might: the Arc Wall curving across the horizon like a colossal crescent, Lazulli veins glinting faintly where the last sunlight kissed the stone. Somewhere beyond, cannons and bolt-casters bristled, guarding against desert and enemy alike. To Talia, it looked less like a beacon and more like a cage.
Inside the walls, safety was a matter of caste. Nobles walked the avenues in silks and jewels, secure in their wealth. Streetfolk watched them with hollow eyes, waiting for a chance. And Talia—noble blood, traveling alone—was an opportunity that gleamed like coin.
Her experience at the arena had taught her she didn't blend in as much as she thought she did. She felt it in the hush of her footsteps, in the shuffling behind her when she slowed, in the way laughter cut short as she turned a corner. She pulled her shirt tighter, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder.
Then the sky cracked open.
A hiss, then a steady patter—rain, spilling from hidden channels above the streets. Tan'thalon's famed weather-machines at work, timed to wash the city clean.
Talia cursed under her breath. Water slicked her hair to her cheeks, soaking her travel clothes until the fabric clung to her skin. Droplets traced down her jaw, dripping cold from her chin. She could almost feel the eyes behind her sharpen, calculating.
The rain would make her stand out even more.
"Elyndra's mammaries!!" she burst out, quickly followed with "Sorry! Sorry!".
The rain gathered in rivulets along the uneven cobbles, turning the alley into a sheen of glass. Talia slowed her steps, listening.
A splash echoed behind her. Too close.
She spun—nothing but shifting shadows and dripping gutters. But she knew. The prickling at her neck wasn't her imagination.
Her hand drifted toward the sigil at her belt. She wasn't supposed to carry a blade here—Tan'thalon's laws were clear on that—but her father hadn't raised a fool and was a genius at bending the rules when needed to. The paladin's sigil, meant to enforce the light in her.
Another footfall. A whisper. A snicker cut short.
Talia's jaw clenched. Cowards. Waiting for me to stumble.
The alley opened onto a broader street, dim lanterns casting weak halos in the misting rain. Merchants had shuttered their stalls for the evening, their canvas awnings sagging under the water's weight. She hesitated at the threshold. If she went out into the light, they would see her fully. If she stayed, they would close in from the dark.
Movement flickered in the corner of her vision. A figure—then another—slipping through the rain with practiced ease. Streetfolk. Men and women hardened by hunger and desperation. Eyes on her.
Talia's heart hammered. She couldn't let fear show. Nobles who looked afraid didn't walk away whole. She straightened, lifting her chin the way her mother had taught her, though the rain plastered her hair across her face.
"Lost, are we, my lady?" a voice drawled from the dark. Male, older, with the rasp of too many nights spent in smokehouses.
Another figure chuckled, stepping into the glow of a lantern. A woman, lean and sharp-eyed, her grin showing a broken tooth. "Or just slumming it? Can't say we mind either way."
Talia's fingers tightened around the sigil at her waist. Her pulse quickened—but her voice, when it came, was steady.
"You don't want to do this."
They laughed. The sound echoed off the wet stone, swallowed by the rain.
The older man spat into the gutter. "Out here, nobility's worth less than a rat's tail. Only thing that matters is what you carry."
He took a step closer.
Talia, who had been unaware of the dangers Xaerona's capital city held until this point, turned to face the two. Her face paled when she noticed what she was up against.
The rain-soaked alley pressed in tight, the air thick with the stench of oil and garbage. Not two, but eight muggers spread around her like wolves circling prey. She had no sword, no shield—only her clothes and the faint, sputtering glow in her trembling hands. One of them noticed something he was eager to show his comrades.
"Those aren't Elyndra's mammaries I see through that shirt there boys!" the raspy voice bellowed a loud laugh "Atleast we can get something tonight!".
Her breath hitched. The Light was fickle in her grasp, too bright one moment, vanishing the next. Without steel, she felt naked. Even more so when she noticed what he meant. She silently cursed herself.
You should have worn a bra, Talia! Stupid rain!
Still, she planted her feet, raising her hands as her mentors had drilled a thousand times.
Where is Eldarion when you need him… Well… If the Light is all you have, then let the Light be enough.
"You want me? Come get me!" she shouted, still riled from witnessing the arena fight and eager to prove she was just as good. Though she was nowhere near as confident in this situation as The Diviner was.
The first man lunged. She panicked, throwing up her palms. A burst of brilliance erupted, uncontrolled, washing the alley in white fire. The mugger staggered back, howling, clutching his eyes. The others cursed, blinking away spots.
Her heart raced. She hadn't meant to blind them all—she'd only tried to summon a shield. But maybe that was enough.
Two came at her, snarling. She ducked, clumsy but quick, raising a hand in desperation. The Light sputtered again—this time blooming into a trembling sphere of radiance between her palms. It hummed, unstable, flickering. She shoved it forward.
It detonated like a flare. The men reeled, their shadows stretched across the walls. She kicked one in the knee—messy, graceless, but enough to topple him. The other swung wildly, grazing her arm. Pain flared hot, but so did something else: anger.
She clenched her fists, forcing the Light to obey. It gathered around her like a trembling halo, casting jagged shards of illumination onto the bricks. Her fear gave it shape.|
"Back!" she shouted, voice breaking—but the Light carried her cry like thunder.
The muggers hesitated. Her glow wasn't steady, wasn't holy and controlled like the elder Paladins she idolized. But it was raw. It made the alley burn with a dawn-bright glare.
Another thug swung a chain. She tried to summon a shield, but the Light faltered, sputtering out. The chain cracked across her shoulder, driving her to her knees. Pain exploded through her arm. She bit down a scream, scrambling back.
Still she fought. She caught a knife-hand, forcing Light into her palm until it sizzled against his skin. The man yelped, dropping the blade. She flung him aside with strength she hadn't known she had.
Now the others wavered. The girl they had cornered was no helpless victim—she was a storm barely leashed, a lantern about to shatter.
Her glow dimmed, her knees shaking. She could feel the Light slipping from her grasp again, threatening to vanish. But she straightened anyway, chest heaving, palms open in defiance.
"Try me again," she said, her voice steadier than her hands. "And I swear by the Light—you'll regret it."
But she was slowing. Her glow sputtered, her shoulder throbbed from a chain strike, her knees shook with fatigue.
The muggers drew back, grinning.
And from the shadows behind them stepped a man unlike the rest.
His arms gleamed with arcane steel, jointed like insect legs, crimson runes burning down to his fingertips. From his back extended a lattice of machinery grafted along his spine, glowing with molten veins that pulsed beneath his skin. Lazulli tattoos snaked up his neck, fiery lines that seemed to pulse with his heartbeat.
The air thickened with heat as he entered the alley.
Talia froze. She had heard whispers of such things in her order: Ember Seekers.
He smiled, a rictus of cracked lips and teeth. "A fledgling of May'Jahan's flock. How poetic. I was denied your precious training. But Ba'ham gave me more than your priests ever would."
His arm rose, and the crimson runes blazed. Talia tried to summon her shield of Light, but the glow sputtered, faint and unsteady. The Ember Seeker's chest heaved with manic laughter as he loosed a blast of molten energy from his arm.
It hit like a hammer.
Her shield shattered instantly, light breaking like glass. She screamed as the heat slammed her into the alley wall, her breath ripped from her lungs. Her glow died entirely, leaving her slumped, smoking, gasping.
The Ember Seeker stalked closer, each step making the ground hiss. "See, girl? Your Light is a cage. Mine is freedom. Even if it consumes me, I burn brighter than you ever will."
He caught her by the hair and slammed her against the wall with a strength no normal man should have. Her vision spun. The light inside her flickered and broke, leaving her in darkness. She struggled, raising trembling hands—but they only glowed faintly now, no more frightening than candlelight. The muggers closed in, smelling her weakness.
And then—
The cobblestones trembled.
Slowly, deliberately, a small woman stepped into the alley. Rain dripped from her hair, her milky green eyes unfocused but unafraid. The dim lanternlight revealed she was a native here, with skin as tanned as Talia's. Her stance slid into mantis form, arms hooked, body coiled. The earth stirred at her feet.
"Let her go, trash can!" the woman called.
Talia, barely conscious, thought she recognised her, but that might just have been the concussion she received.
The Ember Seeker sneered. "Another of May'Jahan's pets? I'll burn you both."
He thrust out his arm—unstable fire roaring forth.
The woman snapped her wrist in a mantis hook, and the ground rose like a shield, the cobblestones fusing into a wall that absorbed the blast. Steam hissed. She flowed forward, striking with a mantis claw—and the earth struck with her, a pillar bursting from below to crack against the Seeker's chest.
For the first time, his grin faltered. His fellow muggers scrambled.
"She's an elementalist! She'll turn the elements on us! Run!" they shouted as they made their hasty retreat.
Talia, still gasping on the ground, stared in awe. She had fought bravely and failed, but this woman fought as though the earth itself knew martial arts. Slowly she started to realise she had seen this fighting style before.
The elementalist's voice was calm, steady, like stone grinding against stone. "Your fire devours you. My earth sustains me. This fight is over."
And for the first time, the Ember Seeker's flames met something they could not consume.
"We'll see about that" he said, wiping some grit from his cheek with the back of his augmented hand as he rose to his feet.
"Get back here you maggots!" he rallied his troops like a true tyrant "Kick her ass or I'll burn yours!".
The alley became a crucible.
The elementalist lifted her arms into the hooked, insect-like posture of the praying mantis style, rain dripping from her fingertips. She beckoned the men, the thin line of her lips curling up in a lopsided grin.
The muggers, afraid of both the seeker and the elementalist, decided they might stand a better chance against a small woman and went for her and Talia.
As one mugger lunged for Talia, a jagged stone pillar burst upward, flinging him into the wall. Another swung a knife—the elementalist snapped her hand in a mantis hook, and the cobblestones surged, sweeping his legs away like the strike of a claw.
Her every gesture was echoed by the earth itself: a spiraling wrist birthed a swirl of gravel, a stomp split the ground in a jagged burst, a hooked elbow raised slabs of stone that clapped shut like jaws.
Talia, half-dazed, stared in awe as the Elementalist danced—a seamless fusion of martial grace and elemental might. Where she had flailed and bled, this woman fought like the earth itself was alive in her body.
Her savior moved like a storm given flesh, every step flowing, every strike precise. Her head hardly turned toward the thugs, yet her body seemed to know exactly where they were.
A chain lashed from the shadows, aimed straight at her blind side. Without so much as a glance, her wrist flicked, and the metal bracelets on her arm reacted with the movement. The chain snapped against them with a hiss, sparks scattering into the rain.
Another attacker rushed her from behind. She pivoted a fraction too soon for it to make sense, slipping past the strike as though the wind itself had whispered the warning.
Talia's pulse hammered. It wasn't sight guiding her—it was something else, something deeper. But in the haze of blood loss and desperation, she only saw grace and fury. She only saw a savior.
One by one, the muggers fell—trapped in stone, slammed into walls, swept into shallow pits that closed over them like graves. The alley was a storm of earth and motion, and then, silence.
The fight was over almost before it began. Bodies lay groaning in the mud, their weapons scattered, the rain washing away their bravado.
The Elementalist lowered her arms. The ground stilled. She pointed towards the Seeker, not giving him the dignity of looking in his direction.
"You're next".
For a moment it seemed like it was just the two of them, facing off against each other. A stark contrast of a towering half machine man and a small woman, raindrops clattering all around them.
The Ember Seeker's runes flared, crimson molten light coursing through the machinery of his arms and spine. Steam hissed off the wet stones around him, the air trembling with unstable heat.
Across from him, the elementalist settled into her praying mantis stance—arms bent like hooked talons, feet anchored wide, her body coiled and patient. The cobblestones beneath her bare feet thrummed in answer, rising and falling like breath.
They circled, predator and sentinel.
The Ember Seeker struck first—his arm snapped forward, a blast of molten energy lancing across the alley. The Elementalist flowed sideways, one hand slicing through the air. The ground mirrored her motion, tilting up like a slab-shield. The fire struck stone, exploding in sparks, steam billowing in slow-motion arcs.
She stepped in. Her hooked hands darted like mantis claws—snatch, trap, strike. With each gesture, the earth obeyed: cobbles cracked upward into jagged spikes, sweeping toward the Seeker. He swiped his other arm in a wide arc, releasing a wave of unstable fire that shattered the spikes into glowing shards. The fragments rained down like meteors.
For a moment, time slowed—the alley lit half in flame, half in earthen shadow.
The Seeker lunged, moving faster than his warped body should allow, veins of molten Lazulli pulsing brighter. He slammed a fist forward, and the ground itself caught fire, flames racing toward her like a burning serpent.
The Elementalist sank low, her stance tightening. Her hooked hands snapped downward in a mantis "catch," and the cobblestones split open. The fiery serpent plunged into the crack, snuffed out as the earth swallowed it whole.
She rose with sudden grace, her arm hooking upward like a mantis claw striking prey. From below, a stone pillar erupted, smashing into the Seeker's chest and throwing him back against the wall. Machinery sparked, runes dimming for a heartbeat.
But he only laughed, coughing blood that hissed to steam on his lips. "Yes! That's it! Break me! Every strike feeds the fire!"
He thrust both arms skyward, his spine-implants glowing white-hot. The air screamed as unstable energy gathered, flames convulsing around his body.
Talia, half-conscious on the ground, shielded her face. "He'll burn the whole alley!"
The Elementalist stood firm, her gaze unfocused but her stance unshaken. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her arms into the Mantis's Closing Claw. The earth groaned in response. Walls shuddered, cobblestones cracked wide, dust swirling into the rain.
The Ember Seeker roared, releasing a cataclysmic blast of flame that painted the night in crimson fire.
The Elementalist's hands snapped shut. The earth itself rose like jaws closing—two titanic stone walls surged upward and inward, forming a crushing embrace. The fire crashed against them, bursting outward in a storm of sparks and embers. The alley thundered, shaking like an earthquake.
When the dust cleared, the Seeker was pinned in the stone's grip, his arms sparking, his fire sputtering. His tattoos glowed faintly, life and flame guttering together.
The Elementalist exhaled, lowering her stance. The ground stilled.
Talia crawled to her knees, trembling, staring at the impossible clash she had just witnessed. "You… you stopped him."
The Elementalist tilted her clouded eyes toward her. "No. He stopped himself. Fire without balance always burns its wielder first."
The Seeker laughed weakly, blood flecking his lips. "Better… to burn… than to kneel." His glow dimmed to nothing.
The woman's lips drew into a lopsided smirk again, something Talia definitely recognised. "Yet you are kneeling before me right now" With just a small downwards gesture the stone slabs obeyed her will, bringing the Seeker to his knees.
Talia sagged, shaken but alive. She blinked through rain and tears. "I… I tried. But I couldn't hold them off."
The woman tilted her head, listening to her trembling voice. She reached out, touching Talia's arm gently. "You stood, even when you knew you would fall. That is the first step."
"You didn't have to risk yourself for me" Talia said, feeling embarrassed. She had already figured out who this woman was. Now the arena fight made a lot more sense to her.
The elementalist, turning her clouded gaze to the groaning seeker, said softly,
"That's what heroines do."
She offered Talia a steadying hand, her voice soft but unyielding.
"Stand. You have the Light. But remember—discipline shapes power, or power consumes. That is the difference between a weapon… and a heroine."
She tilted her head again, noticing hurried footsteps in the distance.
"Enforcers.. They'll help you." she said, running towards the darkness of the alley, pausing just long enough for some final words "And thank you for cheering for me earlier!".
Talia just stared dumbfounded. Maybe it was everything just catching up to her, but her emotions got the better of her and she started blushing.
"I knew it! You're The Diviner!".
Said Diviner disappeared into the night with the rumble of the earth, the darkness swallowing her.