Vex Effect
A full moon loomed, illuminating a rural landscape like the sun through an overcast filter. Vex streaked across the sky, the wind eliciting a deafening howl as she glanced back, her blond bangs plastering across her face. Blue slivers of light peeled away from her wings like embers drifting from a fire. A timer was nearing zero and her brief time flying was about to become a brief time falling.
Not the party crashing I had in mind, she thought. But at least they’ll know I arrived. Her speed insisted she close her eyes, but she squinted instead. Doing what she was told was never something she was any good at. Besides, there was still plenty of glaring to do.
A contingent of the king’s army was arrayed in an open field below. They stood in three columns arranged in a wedge. The forward formation held aloft a banner of black and red but may as well have been concentric circles of black and white, such was her hate for flags.
Vex fixated as the ground rushed to greet her. She reached back, blue pearls of magic coalescing in her grasp to become a shaft. Rod, meet lightning. A bearded axehead finished the weapon and she yanked it down, the overhead chop converging on the formation like a falling star.
Boom!
An eruption of magic buffeted her landing, jagged talons of ice curling up from the ground and cascading outward. Bodies rent, their components splaying from various directions. Helmets tumbled free, some still occupied by the desiccated heads inside them. Those undead remaining untouched remained unphased and simply trained their gaze on her as she stood.
Rod, meet ice? Nah, that doesn’t work. She shrugged. Well, this is awkward. I wasn’t expecting to survive that, so I don’t really have a step two.
Vex cast the axe aside, the magic around her already dissipating. She reached to her back and retrieved a weapon, its short staff elongating to become a glaive.
Have you found strength enough yet?” asked a helmeted soldier.
She lunged, launching a sweeping attack that swatted the speaker and those nearest. The blade continued around and bit into the ground as her bangs settled around her eyes. The back of her hair was roughly shorn at an upward angle, her front laced black bodice likewise severed, both attachments and their memories discarded.
“You are stronger,” said another, who immediately collapsed under an overhead chop.
“Do you think of them still, Rap—”
Vex drove the staff-end through the speaker’s face with a growl. “That’s not my name.”
The soldiers moved, swords sheening in unison as they left their scabbard, the column remnants moving to encircle her. “If you can’t even accept—”
Swat!
“...who you are,” continued another, “how can you make progress?”
Wham!
“Do you think of them still—”
Vex roared, her slashes sequencing from multiple directions as she arced her way through those around her. She spit on her last kill, the puppet’s strings cut away, then looked to see the other two formations closing with drawn swords. “Just give me what you said you would!”
“The silk? You have no more need for a ladder.”
“It’s not for a ladder. The man in the moon,” she said, glancing at the smug face shining down on them all. “He took them from me. And I’ll hunt down every last strand of silk.” She sprinted for the nearest column, her teeth bared. “Until I have rope enough.” Wham! “To lasso the moon.” Swat! “And yank his ass from the sky!”
“If you truly believe that, I don’t doubt you’ll ever stop chasing that dream. But it’s not the world we live in. You know—” Thwak! “You weren’t strong enough—” Crash!
Vex’s shoulders rounded, her back arching as her weapon sagged to the ground, her breath coming in gasps. “I’ll never stop. Not until I have them back.”
“Go, then.”
She glanced back as a portal expanded like a yawning mouth. “Wait!” she protested, the undead soldiers encroaching from all sides. “The silk!” The mouth leaned over her and closed, the new place swallowing her whole and marooning her in a knee-high hayfield, a place she didn’t recognize.
Vex’s weapon was suddenly unbearably heavy. Wait, she thought as it rolled from her fingertips. She collapsed to her knees. You didn’t give me the silk. She covered her mouth, then her stomach as she sobbed. Please? I need it.
Constraints
WC: 735/750
Trope: Dueling POVs
Genre: Any
Paired with: Rebel with a Cause
