The jungle was still.
Not silent—still.
Air hung dense with breathless anticipation, too thick for wind, too sacred for rustle. The only sound: a faint, steady hiss—Krixi's mint-green mist, drifting low like spun silk winding between roots and trunks. It crawled over bark, clung to vines, crept between the shadows like it belonged there.
Then the light changed.
It bent.
Refracted, not broken—like sunlight through warped crystal.
A presence shimmered into view—not with fanfare, but with certainty. It didn't arrive. It revealed itself.
The first Ravelleon stepped forward.
It was like a hallucination made flesh—serpentine grace coiled into bipedal poise. Pearl-white skin shimmered with veins of coral, turquoise, and gold. Its movements were too smooth, too perfect—each step like liquid thought. Limbs flexed in slow, deliberate arcs, ending in sickle-shaped claws thin enough to split sound.
Its face bore no features. No eyes. Just a smooth, mirrored plate—color-shifting, aware. As it turned, the reflection caught the drift of Krixi's mist—then snapped to the watchers beyond it.
Then the others came.
Three more slipped from the trees—no footsteps, no breath. Only a soft resonance, like a crystal bowl humming under pressure. Their tails flowed behind them in wide, sweeping arcs as they spread into a slow, elegant formation.
> Not a chase.
A trap.
One scout whispered, "Ravelleons…"
Another answered, low and grim, "Elegant. Smart. Cruel. They don't kill to eat. They kill to make you understand why you should have died sooner."
Then, to Sid:
"They came for you. Don't waste this."
Sid's breath sharpened. His fingers hovered just above his threads.
Ethan nudged him with a half-grin. "You've got this. Give 'em hell."
Dianna's eyes narrowed. "Don't screw this up."
The first Ravelleon moved.
A blur of bending light.
A streak of warped vision.
Then gone.
A heartbeat later—it appeared behind Krixi, claw lashing forward.
It struck nothing.
The arc passed clean through the mist. Through her.
The Ravelleon faltered, claws scraping deep confusion into the moss.
Krixi didn't move.
She simply stood—porcelain and silent, her face tilted slightly, vents whispering more fog around her ankles like breath exhaled from a patient god.
The other Ravelleons flickered—two circling wide, one vaulting to a branch without disturbing a single leaf.
Their tails chimed—not sound, but a vibration in Sid's chest. Like a tuning fork struck behind his heart.
They adjusted.
Target: Sid.
He stepped forward. Their mirrored faces turned to him in perfect sync. He hadn't spoken. Hadn't raised his hand.
But they felt it—his will, sharpening like a blade drawn from its sheath.
The nearest Ravelleon lunged.
Sid reacted—threads shot outward, latching onto bark as he swung away. A claw grazed his cheek, whisper-close. Another appeared to his left—he ducked, slid beneath a low root, kicked off a tree.
They weren't just fast.
They were intuitive.
Sid gritted his teeth. His threads lashed out again, aiming to snare a tail.
The Ravelleon slipped free mid-air in a blur of copper and gold, landing with inhuman grace.
Sid reached for Krixi with his mind.
Still nothing.
She stood as if observing a slow ritual.
Her elongated arm traced symbols in the soil—glyphs or spirals—using the tips of her claws.
> Krixi… move.
I need you.
Nothing.
Another Ravelleon surged. Sid twisted, breath ragged. Krixi's mist slowed it, made its mirrored face shimmer with static and fractured color.
Still not enough.
Another flicker. Closer. A claw gleamed. Sid braced—
> Why won't she—
Then it came.
A passing thought.
Not voluntarily. Instinctively.
> I wish it would just die.
Krixi turned her head.
Her eyes pulsed green for the first time.
Sid's fingers moved.
Not by choice.
The threads danced—not at his command.
At hers.
Krixi stepped forward.
The mist thickened. Sharpened.
Her scythe-arm unfolded slowly—elegant, reverent. Like a predator stretching, not out of laziness, but ceremony.
Then she vanished.
Phasecarve activated.
She peeled out of existence—leaving behind a translucent afterimage, an echo made of light and memory.
A Ravelleon struck through the space she'd occupied.
Missed.
She was already behind them.
Two leapt—airborne, coordinated.
Krixi reformed between them mid-air—reassembling with surgical grace. Threads stitched her back together like a ghost sewing its own body.
Her reaper-limb spun—Guillotine Spiral—a full-body rotation so precise it looked effortless.
The first Ravelleon was cleaved from collar to sternum. Its mirrored plate shattered without sound.
The second turned to react.
It never had the chance.
Scythe Lash. A translucent arc screamed silently through the air, bending light in its wake. Reality seemed to flinch.
Then its headplate slid free—split diagonally, a clean divide.
Both bodies fell. No scream. No final sound.
The last two froze.
Ravelleons never froze.
Until now.
Krixi stood, framed in her own fog—venting coils of green mist in hypnotic spirals.
Another Ravelleon lunged in desperation.
She flickered sideways—Phasecarve—leaving behind a hazy silhouette of herself.
Sid's hand twitched.
Silent Reconstruct.
Krixi unraveled mid-motion—dissolving into silver-green threads—and rebuilt herself behind the charging beast.
She didn't strike fast.
She struck exactly.
Her reaper-arm thrust upward, impaling the Ravelleon from below.
A hiss escaped the ruptured core. Limbs spasmed.
Then silence.
The final one turned to flee.
But the Lurking Smog had thickened behind it—slowing limbs, choking breath.
Its mirrored face trembled with fractured light.
Then it saw her.
Krixi didn't run. She drifted.
Like fog in the shape of death.
And that was the last thing it saw.
---
Sid stood frozen.
Threads hummed around his fingers.
Not his. Not anymore.
They moved because she was speaking through them.
Not a puppet.
Not a weapon.
Something else.
> His will.
Her instinct.
A single mind split across two forms.
---
From the brush, the scouts stared.
Ethan whispered, "That… who's exactly in control?"
Dianna said, flatly, "I think she is."
One of the scouts muttered, "She's not his puppet. She's his partner."
A pause.
"Might be good or worse."
Sid didn't speak.
His hand twitched again.
The threads went slack.
And Krixi returned to his side—mist curling softly around her legs like breath finding calm again.
No victory pose. No glory.
Just stillness.