Plot Armor Is Overrated

Chapter 2: A Pawn Just Committed Regicide

She managed a gasp, a wordless, guttural snarl, and slammed her knee into his side.

It was nothing. A pebble thrown at a mountain.

Lux let her go, not because it hurt, but because he wanted to.

She dropped to the ground, smoking, her skin blackened and cracked where he'd touched her. Her right arm twitched uselessly. She couldn't feel her fingers.

He raised his hand again.

She rolled.

The next blast sliced clean through her left side, carving a sizzling line from ribcage to hip. She cried out, eyes wide as blood sprayed across the shattered earth, steam rising from the open wound.

She tried to crawl. To breathe.

Lux walked behind her like a god descending a temple stair.

He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and lifted her clean off the ground with one hand. His face was passive now. Blank. Serene.

"You were doing well," he said softly.

Then he punched her.

It wasn't just a blow. It was a supernova in her gut. Light poured from the point of impact, searing through cloth, skin, muscle. The air left her lungs in a soundless gasp. Her body folded over his fist and hung there, limp.

And then she was airborne again, tossed like broken cargo.

She landed hard. She didn't move right away. Couldn't. Her arms trembled as they tried to push her upright, but the nerves in her shoulders were on fire. Her legs refused commands.

He was walking toward her now.

No speed tricks. No teleportation. Just calm, calculated steps through the battlefield he had just remade with his hands.

"You wanted the real fight," Lux said. "This is it."

Another flash.

She rolled, instincts firing before thought.

A beam of concentrated light carved the earth beside her, vaporizing the terrain. Shards of molten stone rained down, singing her exposed arms. She hissed and forced herself to her feet, barely.

Her right leg buckled.

Something was wrong, really wrong.

She looked down.

Bone.

Poking through the side of her thigh. Her vision wavered. Her breath came short and ragged, every inhale a spike of agony.

Lux didn't stop.

He was on her again, his movement less like running and more like a glitch in reality. One instant he was meters away, the next, his elbow slammed into the side of her face with blinding force. Teeth cracked. Her neck twisted unnaturally as she flew again, this time tumbling end over end like a discarded doll.

She hit a jagged outcrop. The stone shattered under the force of her impact. Something inside her cracked with it. Her arm, maybe. She couldn't tell anymore. Everything was pain and light and heat.

She lay there, panting, a trail of blood running from her mouth down her neck. Her left eye wouldn't open. Swollen shut. Her right hand twitched uselessly in the dust, nails scraping for something, anything.

Footsteps. Closer.

She could see his silhouette now, backlit by the devastation. He looked beautiful in the worst possible way, divine, symmetrical, and utterly untouchable. Like a god of light.