Lucid stood there, facing the one person in Vex who had shown him a semblance of fairness, who had pulled him from a cell and called him partner. Frederick. Everything about the situation felt wrong. Why had this knight been so kind? Why help him at all? Nothing since that train added up. This man was suspicion walking, and Lucid had every reason to trust that feeling. Looking at him now, Lucid wondered why Frederick had enrolled him, why he'd been pushed toward this rift, what red line he was meant to conquer.
'I didn't care whether I ended up in a cell or not,' Lucid thought. 'I knew I would find my way toward my goal anyway. Yet something is off. This guy.'
Frederick stood with his hand on his sword hilt, his usual easy charm gone, replaced by a grave stillness. Lucid readied himself. No words were exchanged. Both had grim thoughts forming, and the look in their eyes made the silent space between them even heavier.
They waited.
They stood as if braced for an attack, each waiting for the other to move first. Lucid kept his gaze locked, the mist around his face swirling with unnatural intensity. Frederick's eyes, usually a bright sky blue, were now a deep, dark cobalt, fixed on Lucid with an unsettling clarity.
"Lay down your weapon," Frederick said, his voice formal and hollow. "By the order of the First Arsenal."
"Really?" Lucid's laugh was a dry, brittle sound. "You led me here. Found you at last."
Frederick's gaze shifted to the bodies at Lucid's side. Something registered in his expression. These weren't his teammates. They were other students. He might not have known them well, but seeing people he recognized lying dead on the ground shifted something. "You murdered Rina, Fey, and a second-year."
"Oh, you know their names?" Lucid's tone was flat, almost mocking.
Frederick's glare deepened, as if Lucid was making a cruel joke. "Turn yourself in. This doesn't have to go ugly."
"HOW ABOUT NO!" Lucid's yell shattered the tense quiet. "I get framed for no reason on some gods-forsaken train! I get probation for who knows how long! Then I get sent into some Epsilon rift to help you with your mess, or rather, to slave away and clean it up! I get almost killed, I fight back, and I AM THE BAD GUY?" He was laughing now, a raw, manic sound. "I swear, this is just so funny!"
Movement.
A flash of intent. Frederick closed the distance between them in a blur. His sword swung up. Lucid stepped back, but not fast enough. His arm was cut clean through, flying up in a bloody arc before hitting the ground. Pain followed, white-hot and sharp.
But Lucid had survived worse. Being gutted, strangled, crushed. A lost arm was nothing. He stepped back, briefly caught off guard, then planted his feet.
He looked down. Frederick's sword was already thrusting forward again, aimed straight for his torso with all the knight's considerable might. The speed, the precision—it was beyond any Awakened or Latent Lucid had faced. For the first time, a thread of doubt wound through him.
He gritted his teeth and yelled through them. His remaining hand shot out and caught the blade. Steel tore through his palm, shearing flesh and bone, and bit deep into his stomach before he stopped its momentum. It was a shallow cut this time, not the gutting blow from before, but it was enough.
Lucid winced. The pain was sharp, then ran cold as adrenaline and Alice's numbing power flooded his veins.
Frederick looked shocked at what had stopped him. His eyes went wide. By then, Lucid had already regenerated his arm—bone wrapped in new flesh, shimmering with green light. He drove the newly formed fist into Frederick's face with a sickening crack.
Frederick stumbled back several feet, spitting blood. Lucid didn't give him time. He grabbed Frederick's head as he recoiled and kneed him in the face. It was fast. It was ugly. That was Frederick's strength. Lucid was weaker, slower, less skilled. But he could regenerate. Endlessly. With Alice's infinite well of fate essence now flowing through him without recoil, he could come back from anything.
Frederick stumbled, swung his sword in a wild upward arc. Lucid tilted his head back, the blade grazing his throat. They closed again in a frantic, brutal dance. A flurry of attacks met Lucid. He stepped aside from a vertical chop, ducked under a swing, then took a kick to the side that knocked the wind from him.
'This is bad.'
The sword came down, aimed at his neck. Of all places, the neck was the most vulnerable. He could regenerate from a lot, but severing his central nervous system? That wasn't something he could walk off easily.
He grinned.
White chains of heart materialized around his neck from nowhere.
CLANK.
They shattered.
A thin red line opened on Lucid's throat before sealing shut. He wiped the blood from his mouth. Frederick stared, reevaluating the person before him.
Lucid summoned another chain, wrapping the end around his fist. Alice winced inside him from the strain, but he didn't care.
'Tch. Her pain? I've experienced worse.' The thought was loud, meant for no one but himself.
They engaged again. Frederick swung. Lucid met the sword with a chain lasso, wrapped it, and used the leverage to jump and kick Frederick mid-air. It connected, but Frederick let go of his sword and drove an elbow into Lucid's knee.
It twisted inward with a nasty pop.
Lucid winced. He looked up as Frederick reclaimed his sword and prepared to plunge it down. Lucid wrapped his hand in a chain and intercepted the steel, knocking it aside by mere millimeters. He spun away, panting, breathing ragged. This was it. Either he survived, or he died. This encounter, among many, felt the most dangerous.
Fredrick stepped forward, unflinching.
Lucid ran at him head-on, feinting with the chained lasso. At the last second, he threw a handful of dirt and purple grass at Frederick's eyes.
Frederick flinched, stopped.
'YES!'
Lucid threw his hand back, chains wrapping effortlessly around his arm into a glowing brass knuckle. "AHHH!" He roared, punching forward with a furious thrust meant to shatter stone.
CLANG.
Frederick parried the fist.
'What the?!'
Lucid's momentum carried him forward, stumbling. It was too late to turn, too late to block the coming attack.
Frederick, eyes half-blinded, was fighting on pure instinct, sound, and sense. He drove his sword forward and stabbed Lucid through the chest.
Lucid tensed, his body going rigid.
"You fought dirty," Frederick said, breathless. "But I suppose this is it. May Mother Alisia guide you to oblivion in her final embrace."
"FUCK YOU!" Lucid snarled. With every ounce of force in his bones, in his blood, in his very essence, he threw himself backward, pulling himself off the sword in a spray of blood.
"You're fighting for duty and honor!" Lucid spat, blood flecking his lips. "I haven't done anything! I just want to survive!"
He drove a bloody fist into Frederick's face. Frederick was momentarily thrown by the sheer, unwavering desperation, the terrible, cracking determination to keep moving despite the pain, despite the terrible odds, despite having no skill that could assure victory.
Frederick cut Lucid's other arm. It landed with a thud on the ground. That didn't stop him. Bone fragments protruded from the new wound in his remaining arm. He drove it, cracks and all, toward Frederick's face.
Frederick, caught off guard, fell back, grabbing his injured eyes but quickly regaining control.
Lucid was already moving. In one forward motion, he kicked Frederick's legs out, knocking him to his knees, then onto his back. Lucid steadied himself over Frederick, who looked bruised but whose eyes held a painful, focused clarity. They softened for a second, seeing Lucid's erratic, broken movements.
Lucid drove his newly healed hand down and punched Frederick. Again. And again. Until bones in his own hand shattered anew.
"IT IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!" he screamed, punching with his other broken, half-healed fist. Blood flew everywhere. "WHAT HAVE I DONE? I swear, everyone just wants me to die!"
He punched Frederick until his lips were swollen, his eye a bruised mess. Frederick could tank the hits, but the words got to him. Someone so desperate to live, so sure of his own persecution. Maybe the three third-years actually had been out to kill him. Maybe Lucid wasn't affiliated with the Chapeu or any grand conspiracy. Maybe this had been a test—to see if he would break, or flee the rift. But he hadn't. He'd stood and fought, messily, desperately, against a knight.
Lucid fell forward, hunched over Frederick's shoulder on the ground. It began to rain from the grey clouds above, a soft, cold drizzle on the hot blood and sweat.
Frederick managed a breathless, pained chuckle. "Very well. You have passed."
He needed allies now. The whole situation was in a bad state, just as his fellow knight had warned. He needed every help he could get to uncover the organization and save her. For she had saved him once. Now it was his time to return the favor, and to prove to himself that he was different this time.
"Lucid," Frederick said, his voice rough. "Will you share this path with me? For my own selfish oath."
He patted Lucid's back. There was no immediate response, just ragged breathing.
Frederick nodded. That was all the confirmation he needed.