by Ryan Tang
"Come on! Don't tell me you can't control the Sinsworn? That's just a basic! Come on! Try and fight me!"
The Tooth Man tried, but of course, he couldn't win. He was new to controlling the Sinsworn. Lonely sent four machines flying out in a tight diamond formation to meet The Tooth Man's disorganized and burning squadrons. The stupid oaf's attempts to command his drones made him look like a complete novice. He tried to animate all his surviving troops at once instead of focusing on a few. The result was an awkward shamble that accomplished nothing. Lonely effortlessly tore through the defenders. Gallant's eyes widened when she realized what her brother was doing. It was supposed to be impossible to control four machines, but he'd simply linked the Sinsworn at the back of his formation to the one at the front. It was the same technique that allowed mass-fire tactics. The back machine copied all the first unit's moves, but it was impossible to notice unless you looked closely.
"Idiot! Idiot! You can't control them all at once! You have to get good at controlling them one at a time first!"
"Don't teach me! Don't teach me! Don't you dare teach me! Remember your place!"
The Tooth Man gave up on moving his Sinsworn and returned to his main machine.
"I'll punch through everything you send at me! Thousand Teeth – Punch Supreme!"
The teeth flickered feebly.
That was Gallant's cue. She released a deep breath. The excitement surged through her. The Sinsworn core of her decoy spun faster and faster. Her Intuition giggled. She could feel it leaning from the front of her mind. Adrienne huffed jealously. The jellyfish didn't like it when Gallant used the Sinsworn. She didn't get a turn to play.
Lonely cackled, trying his best to imitate The Tooth Man's irritating squealy pitch.
"You can't beat me with Sinsworn. Let's see if you can beat a kid in single combat!"
She released a deep breath, almost like she was trying to call Liquid State Eternium. The Sinsworn couldn't liquefy, but when she and her Intuition concentrated, they'd transform.
A bulbous stomach formed, and then a mouth burst from it. A long tongue wrapped around The Tooth Man's Paragon. Steel fangs crunched against his shark's teeth.
There was a terrible shattering noise.
Gallant screamed as The Tooth Man's armor broke all at once. Her mutated teeth chewed feebly. Her Intuition couldn't concentrate, and neither could she, but The Tooth Man's Eternium was so soft and wrong.
Evil.
The sphere was evil.
The holy metal screamed and wailed in Gallant's ears. Adrienne's theory hadn't been completely wrong. The Tooth Man hadn't gone insane, but the Eternium had.
Gallant tried not to throw up.
The Tooth Man's machine was just a useless cockpit, the same as what he'd done to Lonely during their last fight. It was good. This was their revenge. But the poisoned Eternium swirled around it like a vengeful spirit, and Gallant let out a choked gasp.
Lonely shrugged. He seemed totally unperturbed. Her big brother didn't realize what was wrong.
"I didn't expect him to break so easily."
Gallant clenched her teeth. House battles had no rules. Poisoning Eternium was alright. She couldn't get distracted, not in the middle of a battle.
The Tooth Man screamed and screamed.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go so I can punish you! Let me go!"
Gallant brought a tassel back to plunge it straight through the cockpit.
She froze. It'd been easy to think about killing The Tooth Man, but now that she had the actual chance, it didn't feel right. She didn't want to kill him. She just wanted him to go away forever. Gallant jerked again as the poisoned Eternium rattled her brain. The holy metal screamed and wailed. It begged for mercy. It begged her to tell Lonely to stop.
Gallant blinked and shook her head as she realized what was happening.
It wasn't just the Eternium screaming for mercy. It was also The Tooth Man. She could distinguish his voice once she started paying attention.
"No! Let me go! Let me go!"
"Please! Please! Please don't kill me! Please!"
"Do we have to kill him?"
Lonely paused.
"No. Let's just capture him and force his surrender."
"Yeah. That sounds good."
But it was not to be. The Tooth Man let out a strangled gasp. He twisted and turned.
"Thousand Teeth! Punch Supreme!"
The teeth barely flickered into existence. The Tooth Man's Pride had been shattered just like his Paragon. But it wasn't the teeth that forced Gallant back. It was the dust they'd kicked up. She screamed and gasped. It felt like the dust had been flicked right into her skull. The grooves of her brain were burning.
She crashed onto the floor, landing right on her arm.
Lonely cried out in fright.
"Gallant!"
Adrienne swooped down, hugging her. The bubble-cage was warm against her neck. She'd be alright if Adrienne was there. The poisoned Eternium continued crawling around her skull.
"No! Gallant!"
The Tooth Man's machine swerved into the night sky.
Everything turned pink. Her whole arm was pink. Her Intuition screamed and screamed.
"I'll save you! I'll save you! I can save you!"
It lunged forward, pushing to the front of her mind. It felt so strange, like someone was leaning on her brain.
Then she fainted.
CHAPTER 9: THE PLAGUE CARRIER
"Gallant! Gallant!"
Lonely bent down right next to her. His sister trembled and moaned as a string of words dripped past her lips.
"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
"Poison. Poison."
She rolled over.
"Intuition. Thank you. Intuition."
Something strange had congealed around her arm. It was pink and slightly transparent, almost like the bubble of her Paragon, but it didn't quite look like Eternium. He poked at it, and it bounced.
Outside, The Tooth Man's crowd was wailing and screaming.
"Monster! Monster! She's a monster!"
"Holy shit! Run! Run! She'll kill us all! Run!"
"Get out of here before The Tooth Man comes back! He'll kill us all! Run!"
The Sinsworn were left abandoned outside Brightwalls. It was more machines than he'd ever seen in his life.
Lonely took a shaky breath.
"Gallant. Are you alright?"
His sister grabbed him, and the pink dissolved from her arm like it'd never been there at all. Adrienne undulated with relief.
"Yeah. I'm okay."
Her eyes were wide and staring. They looked darker than usual.
"I'm sorry I let him go. Sorry. Sorry. The poison."
She trembled.
"Poison. His Eternium was poison."
The sphere tightly pressed against his pocket and his stomach lurched. Bringer had said the same thing, that the dissolved Eternium was poisonous. But she'd been far away when that happened. She hadn't even been inside her cockpit. It was just a Sinsworn.
He didn't know why it bothered her. He was worried she would find it dishonorable, but that didn't seem like the problem at all. She hadn't liked it earlier either, when he'd used it right after declaring the House battle. He'd noticed, but he'd pretended otherwise. He'd been worried he couldn't win without it.
He pulled her to her feet. Her voice was still very high-pitched.
"Can I sleep in your room tonight? And bring Adrienne?"
"Yeah, of course."
He would have insisted on it even if she hadn't asked.
Lonely grimaced. He wouldn't use the sphere if he could avoid it, not if it bothered Gallant. She'd always had a special relationship with Eternium. Anyone could see it - the fluidity in battle, the mutations of her Sinsworn, the resplendent beauty of Brightwalls. Perhaps sensing the poisoned Eternium was some strange drawback. He didn't understand his sister's gifts, but he knew he had to cherish them. He took off his sports jacket then wrapped it around the sphere.
He set it off to the side, and then helped Gallant back to her room.
____
To his relief, Gallant displayed no symptoms in the next two days. Perhaps it was just an initial reaction. Even the strange shiny pink disappeared. He still watched her, but there was nobody he could ask about it. He had no friends among the Constellation. If Bringer knew about the pink, he might see it as weakness. He might abandon them.
The sphere remained wrapped in his suit jacket. He did not take it, nor did he hate. He still feared and loathed The Tooth Man, but it felt lighter when he didn't concentrate on it.
He expected another attack, but it did not come the next day, nor did it come the day after. That was strange. The Tooth Man still had at thousands of Sinsworn at his command. He should have been thirsty for revenge.
Gallant thought he was hiding.
"I think he's scared. He was such a coward. Maybe it'll be our turn to hold a siege. We have the machines for it."
Lonely thought there was a good chance of that. In his haste to escape, The Tooth Man had left all his remaining Sinsworn outside their home. They'd drifted there for the next day until he finally sent his own Sinsworn to gather them. The surviving drones multiplied their forces to over seven hundred. It felt so strange seeing the massive army in the hangar.
Even though he'd just used them in battle, it made Lonely feel like the Sinsworn were fake, like they were just for keeping score. After all, The Tooth Man had more Sinsworn than he could command, so many that Lonely's fortunes had swung wildly with a single battle. Until then, the Sinsworn had just gathered dust in The Tooth Man's hangar. That didn't help the Conquest.
"It's not going to be 'we.' You need to rest."
Lonely decided that if The Tooth Man attacked again, he would fight alone. He wanted his sister to recover. He suspected that the strain came from her proximity to the strange sphere, but it could have been anything. Gallant was just child. She may have had difficulties controlling the Sinsworn.
Gallant scoffed as her jellyfish flared behind her.
"I can defeat a coward."
"Let's just wait for now. We don't even know if he's hiding."
"He is. My intuition says so."
"We'll see. There's no need to risk it."
On the evening of the second day, the news reported on their battle. The Lords who'd been in attendance provided commentary. Some of them agreed with The Tooth Man and called Lonely a coward, but a few hinted that they wanted to declare some House battles themselves.
It was unequivocally reported as their victory. They had lost 9 Sinsworn. The Tooth Man had lost 258.
Bringer sent him a message as well.
"Congratulations on winning your first battle, but don't forget that a House battle is an all-out war. Stay vigilant and make use of your Familiar!"
Lonely had no intention of telling Bringer what had happened with the sphere. The young Noble responded with a simple "thank you" instead.
Gallant soon got bored. By the tenth day, she was begging to be let outside. Now that Lonely wasn't using the sphere anymore, she was back to her usual chipper self.
"What is happening? Why isn't he coming? We need to find out what is happening!"
"Nothing is happening. He's probably licking his wounds. We can't be spooked into giving up this position. The news will tell us what is happening."
But the news didn't say anything about The Tooth Man. The rest of the Constellation was still spinning without them. This was a life or death battle for Lonely and Gallant, but the news treated it like just another Ransom battle. It was simply an eccentricity for others to learn from.
New House battles came to fruition. Most of them were boring affairs. Both Lords simply waited in their Castlecraft. Lonely and Gallant's victory over The Tooth Man had clearly demonstrated the best way to win a House battle.
But one of them ended in a single burst of glory after a presumptuous Lord had challenged All Range the young prodigy. Although All Range only had a handful of Sinsworn alongside her, the fight had ended in moments. All Range slew her foe with a single Finisher, taking his Castlecraft and all his Sinsworn. Within moments, she'd rocketed from a fearsome and notable initiate to a top twenty-five spot in the rankings. Her victory was the talk of the entire Constellation. There were rumors she was forming an alliance with the Surgeon to ward off future House battles. As Bringer had predicted, the House battles were forcing the Constellation together, even if it was only for self-interested reasons.
The higher-ranking Lords were quick to criticize the sudden turn. Elder Three Staff dismissed people like All Range and Lonely as hasty upstarts. The Young Giant – who wasn't so young anymore – was even angrier.
"House battles are just a way for hungry newcomers to cheat the system. They should be lucky Lords of our caliber haven't succumbed to the foolishness yet. Anyone who challenges me, however, shall be dealt with mercilessly."
Lonely sneered. They were just scared. But when he read the article again, a disturbing fear crept through his mind.
What if the high-ranking Lords immediately consolidated the Castlecraft and Sinsworn of weaker Houses? He and Gallant had been able to defeat The Tooth Man, but that'd seemed like an exceptional case. They'd had prior training, and The Tooth Man was exceptionally stupid. Everything else being equal, the Lord with more Sinsworn had a massive advantage in a House battle.
Instead of a new and better world, the House battles could just lead to the higher-ranking Lords slaughtering everyone else. Their pre-existing Sinsworn lead could be insurmountable.
He was just about to send Bringer a note about this when someone hailed them from outside.
The Tooth Man's voice was broken and terrified. He sounded more frightened than he did in the courtroom. He was even sobbing.
"You! You!"
Gallant cried out in surprise when she saw the enemy machine.
"Is he here to surrender? What is he doing here? Do you want me to launch?"
The Tooth Man wailed. Grief and terror echoed through his voice.
"You! You! You killed my shark! You made me an Ignorant freak just like you! What did you do? What did you do?"
"You! You! I'm a freak just like you now!"
The Tooth Man was screaming and sobbing, howling and crying. He suddenly stopped talking at all and started making a painful retching noise instead. It sounded like he was trying to hack up his throat.
Lonely blinked. It was just as Gallant had said. The poisoned Eternium...
"Big Bro! What do I do? Should I pick him up?"
"No."
He couldn't allow The Tooth Man anywhere near Gallant. The decaying Eternium had some kind of exceptionally harmful effect on her.
"Go to your room and stay there. I'll deal with this."
"Is he going to be alright?"
Her voice was tight with worry.
"Don't worry about him. It was him or us."
Lonely repeated himself so that he'd remember.
"Him or us."
The Tooth Man would have killed him under Ransom battles. He'd openly boasted about his plan. All Lonely did was even the playing field.
The Tooth Man was forcing out the words. The retching had slowed, replaced by sharp and painful coughs.
"Shark! Dead! You! Die!"
"Thousand Teeth – Punch Supreme!"
His voice was shaking, painful, and hesitant, nothing like the proud man who'd fought them ten days ago. He sounded nothing like the arrogant Lord who'd mercilessly hounded Lonely for the last few years.
The Tooth Man's rebuilt machine whirled towards their Castlecraft, spinning awkwardly from side to side. It was just a pitiful, almost comical, imitation of his Finisher. The Tooth Man's machine wasn't even flying in a straight line, and the teeth did not emerge.
Lonely frowned. He'd remembered Bringer's warnings about the foul-smelling Eternium, but it was hard to believe it'd kill his shark. That huge and mean thing looked like it'd live forever.
Lon
ely called Gallant on his tablet as he ran to the hangar.
"Are you in your room?"
"Yeah."
"Lock the door."
He didn't think it'd make a difference, but perhaps it would. It seemed like Gallant's aversion to the poisoned Eternium had something to do with her mind. Maybe a step like that would help. He was just making everything up as he went along.
The gray and blue machine continued wobbling towards them, the teeth nowhere to be found. From the looks of it, The Tooth Man hadn't brought any Sinsworn with him either.
Lonely wasn't about to fly outside unarmed, but The Tooth Man had never been smart enough for traps. He entered his machine and drew his rifle, linking his mind with the Sinsworn around him so they'd copy his actions. A simple command like that could be repeated among as many machines as he could track.
The guns sounded over and over again. The head and limbs were blasted to pieces. The indigo and gray shards drifted through space. Lonely reminded himself to collect them. Scavenging was illegal in Ransom battles, but there were no laws in a House battle.
The Tooth Man was no longer yelling. His cough had grown harsher and harsher. The loud raking noise echoed and rippled along the walls of their Castlecraft. For one wild moment, Lonely thought he'd misunderstood what The Tooth Man had said. It sounded like the brutish man was the one dying, not his shark.
The useless pod crashed into the white wall and bounced back.
"No! No! No! Thousand Teeth! Punch! Supreme!"
The cockpit pod flew forwards again, spinning comically back and forth. It seemed like The Tooth Man didn't realize his machine no longer had arms.
There was a mild crash as The Tooth Man's cockpit rammed into their wall again.
"Thousand Teeth! Punch Supreme!"
The broken Paragon waggled back and forth.
Lonely sent a Sinsworn through the barrier and brought him inside. The Tooth Man's machine fell to the floor with an unceremonious thunk.
The pod opened.
The Tooth Man crawled out, hacking and sobbing. His fine black suit was stained with muck. The gray shirt was drenched with blood and vomit. There was a loud splash as a torrent of black water erupted from his cockpit, propelling the surprisingly small man out of his cockpit. He drifted along the floor, whispering out of a broken throat.