What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

"Fucking Wizards," Tenpenny spat, as she came at me with her knife, never getting particularly close- I had plenty of explosive rounds, and no qualms whatsoever about using my last one on her, so she had to keep dodging, and couldn't really stop me from backpedaling to maintain distance. "You think your magic makes you sooooo much better than the rest of us, huh?"

"Aw, is the poor little murderer upset that her would-be victim is fighting back?" I crowed. "Cry about it, bitch."

"Let's see how you do without the magic!" she yelled, as she pulled from her sleeve a-

Shit. That's an antimagic stone.

An antimagic field rippled out from the gray, rounded stone in her hands, washing over me with a sensation that made my teeth itch. The mystical senses I'd developed as a Wizard and an Occultist went away, my connection to The Father faded to near-nothingness, and the cold of the prairie's winter night began to seep through the leather of my duster, its temperature-control charms no longer functioning. If I disabled that antimagic stone, then every enchanted item I had on my person would go back to functioning- antimagic wasn't a permanent dispelling, just a temporary suppression- but until then, my gun wouldn't work, and anything inside my pockets was inaccessible, including my sword.

However...

"What the hell?!" Tenpenny demanded.

My fingers lengthened into claws, and my teeth into fangs. Scales spread across my skin from the tips of my fingers and toes nearly to the main trunk of my body. Carefully-concealed vents in my pants and my duster were spread open and filled by my gloriously strong wings and my luxuriously thick tail.

On the one hand, this was surprising- this shouldn't have happened. I was an elf, and these draconic features were normally spell effects, the product of actively-maintained dragonblood sorcery.

On the other hand, this was extremely good- not just because I liked having wings and a tail- the fangs and claws I was more neutral on- but because otherwise I would be fucked.

"Take away the magic," I said, finishing her earlier thought, "and I'm still a dragon."

A single flap of my wings lifted me off of the ground, out of her reach as she rushed me with her dagger, and a few more took me out of the antimagic bubble, where I could start raining fire down on her from my maw.

The antimagic stone cracked and burst in the flames, and the grass around us caught alight. Thankfully- a pulse of Occult magic- it had rained earlier today, and the grass was still wet, otherwise that grass fire I just started in the middle of the night wouldn't burn out the moment I stopped pouring dragonbreath on it, and might actually present a problem to anyone who lived in this general area.

I couldn't see any trace of Tenpenny within the flames, even with elven infrared vision- the fire just drowned out any heat signature she might've made.

Before I could decide on my own to let up, however, a shotgun spray of crossbow bolts came out of the flames, peppering my chest and shoulders, and absolutely ripping through the membranes of my wings, sending searing jolts of pain up and down my spine even before I hit the ground from thirty feet up in the air.

"I'm no physicist," Tenpenny said as she stalked through the ashes and embers, prompting me to pull something out of my pocket before it was too late, "but I'm pretty sure those wings shouldn't be big enough to lift you off the ground without magic." She produced a second antimagic stone, which was a different shape and color from the first one, and antimagic rippled through the air once more.

"Ectoplasm," I said, picking myself up off the ground. "It's made of ideas. Doesn't obey normal physics, but it doesn't count as magic."

"That's a neat trick," Tenpenny said, lifting her dagger- a proper dagger, with a blade slightly more than a foot long, not one of those modern little utility knives they give soldiers that has a serrated portion and a bottle opener on the back edge. "Got any others up your sleeve, or are you going to finally die like the dog you are?"

"My bag of tricks is bottomless," I said, as my ectoplasmic folding sword sprung to its full length, and I deflected her incoming stab.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" she growled, as we started to fence- she might have the advantage of skill, speed, and strength, but there was a lot of advantage to be found in having a two foot sword when your opponent only had a one foot dagger.

"Here's something I don't get," I said, slowly being pushed back- she was aggressive, and I couldn't find an opening to go on the offensive without taking a hit I really didn't want to take. "You want the blood in my veins for practical reasons- for immortality, because I'm an elf. However, I should note, I am exceptional for an elf. There are so fucking many elves who are just normal people who are completely helpless in a fight, and you could've just kidnapped any one of those."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"You think I didn't try that?!" Tenpenny demanded. "You think nobody's tried that?! Elves stick together, dumbass! Getting an elf on their own is impossible, and even when you manage it, some ancient monster crawls out of the woodwork to rescue them at the last moment and kill everyone involved! That's why I'm going for you- whatever elf guardians there are in the world, they think you can protect yourself without them, and that is why I'm fucking bothering!"

She finally managed to slip through my guard, nailing me in the stomach with that dagger of hers. Excruciating pain bloomed outwards for a moment, before being shut down by an autohypnotic trigger. Pain was inessential at the moment; right now, I had to fight.

And so I leaned into the blade, to Tenpenny's surprise, and rammed my folding sword straight through her chest with every last ounce of my half-dragon strength. I felt the telltale resistance of heat-treated spring steel being sheared as I pierced her breastplate, the crunch of ribs giving way beneath my blade, and the wet pop of my blade hitting something important- before finally snapping in half at the joint, which was a shame. At least this gimmicky weekend project ended up accomplishing something useful before breaking, which put it in pretty rarified company among all my projects.

I chuckled a little, as my train of thought continued down that track.

"What's so funny?" Tenpenny demanded with a suddenly raspy voice as she twisted the knife, before coughing up blood. I think I nailed a lung or something.

"I was thinking about my next weekend project," I said. "This collapsible ectoplasm sword really saved my ass, and it works in antimagic. I oughtta make more ectoplasm stuff, and just hide it up my sleeves. And then I realized, here I am, a knife in my stomach, and I'm thinking about my next weekend project."

"Awful optimistic of you," Tenpenny wheezed out, before finally running out of strength, and collapsing to the ground; between her grip on me and my own injuries, I wasn't far behind her, and we both landed on the ashes of burnt grass.

I grabbed the antimagic stone from her, crushing it in one hand, and immediately, the both of us started pouring on the divine magic- myself, to heal my wounds, and her, to-

"Fuck!" I yelped, throwing up an arcane shield to block the divine fires she called down on me.

"I'm not... giving up... that easy!" Tenpenny roared, as she levered herself up, trying to take one last strike at me.

But at point blank range, with no antimagic involved? I could summon my gun in an instant and blow her arm off at the elbow before she managed to put that dagger through my throat.

However... that was the end of me spending magicka tonight, if I didn't want mana burn. And Tenpenny still had enough juice left to hit me with some more fire! Not much more, thankfully, I only got scalded for a moment, but... god, that's gonna hurt in the morning.

But then, finally, spent and exhausted, Tenpenny fell back over, hitting the ground with a quiet thump.

It wasn't the worst showing I'd ever made in a fight. Tenpenny would die too-

"Fuck!" I wheezed out, as she bit down on my throat, and blood began to flow through her hollow vampiric fangs.

My pumping spell, that I'd used for surviving steel through the heart all those months ago, was now a permanently active charm, baked into multiple talismans I carried on my person so they couldn't be separated from me. My blood kept flowing, and my heart didn't bleed, but whatever magic was in her fangs, it was overriding the charm's ability to keep the blood going through my neck inside its veins.

It was a sad reminder; no matter how good I thought I was in a one-on-one fight, no matter the advantages I wield... the simple fact of the matter is, I'm still just a kid, and there's a lot of old monsters out there who can break me in half over their knees before I can even blink. I'd been so close, though; if I'd just been a bit fresher, or had one person here as backup, I would've beaten her.

But...

...an idea occurred to me. I didn't need to win, here- I just need her to lose. I'm out of magicka, and I'd have to give myself mana burn to do what I needed to do, but... well, the alternative was that my death here became permanent.

Vampiric blood magic was mostly symbolic; one's lifespan was not, in fact, literally stored in one's blood. The ways it worked were equally symbolic, governed by the Spiritual, by Ideas.

And if there's anything that being a High Elf and a Wizard has trained me to do, it's nitpick someone's less-than-rigorous ideas, and spoil the metaphorical broth with inconvenient details, such as the reason I can't donate blood even if I want to.

"AB positive," I rasped out. "Bitch."

Tenpenny paused, and I could feel the gears turning in her head, the moment between registering what I said and understanding what I meant. Understanding what I'd done.

"Fuck," she whispered, muffled by my neck in her mouth.

I died with a smile on my face.