I started this new life on a battlefield, when I was chosen by the traveler. I don’t know the man I was before, but I know where he died, and I was born. Something draws me back there occasionally, and I don’t think it’s my love of battlefields. Every battlefield is different. I remember them all. I remember the last stand of a desperate fallen house. They had been pushed back into their hold, besieged by hive. The place looked how you might imagine, the walls were scarred and blackened, the doors sawn apart by hive blades. When I navigated my way to the now ruined throne room, I saw something I’ll never forget. A mountain. A mountain of Hive knights, dead. Atop them, bathed in the soft light of day allowed in by a breach in the roof, was a single Eliksni female. She had fashioned herself armor from her throne of chitin. I had never seen anything like it. She was wounded, pretty bad. We made eye contact, me at the entrance looking up in bewilderment. Her, on her throne of conquest, glaring down at me. The Eliksni make me uncomfortable, at a distance they almost look human. Enough to give me pause. I also can’t pretend I don’t feel any sympathy for them... I stepped forward to introduce myself, and like a flash she was upon me. Arc blades wielded in two of her hands, coming for me like a chakram shot out of hell. My hand fell to my canon, but I hesitated. She could be the last member of this house. A noble remnant of a once great society. Her knives came down at me like a hawk, I had just enough time to free my sword and block. We made eye contact then, our blades wrapped together in a bind. She was old, maybe the oldest Eliksni I had ever seen. There was a fury in her eyes, but something else... Resignation? I don’t know. Like a viper she twisted free of the bind, and came at me with a flurry of blue traced slashes. Faster and faster, I countered the best I could, but I could feel the attacks hitting home. My thigh, my arm, my chest. We leapt between the bodies of knights, up and down her throne of conquest. It was all I could do to survive, she was faster and stronger than any guardian I’d ever heard about. I drew my canon, and pointed it at her. She stopped. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” I said, trembling. “I don’t want this, let me leave and I’ll never bother you again.” A silence hung between us, only broken by the insect like clacking of her mandibles. “Shoot,” she said. My canon stayed silent, my bluff called. In a swift motion she had drawn two more blades, and lunged for me faster than I could believe. All four of them found my heart. It wasn’t so bad. It was quick, painless. But then, she reached for my ghost. How did she know? My eyes were going dark, I was losing feeling in my limbs. With the last of my strength, I summoned a void tether, and struck it into her gut. Panic set over her immediately, and she moved to run. But then a sickly purple tendril ripped out of the anchor and snatched at her leg. She hacked at it with her blades, but you can’t cut light. A second tendril grabbed her, and then a third, pulling her into the anchor. I watched her arc blades sink into the ground for purchase, as she tried to fight the tide, but they dug lines and shattered, and she was dragged screaming into.... into what? Where had I just sent her? What fate had I brought upon this accomplished and noble warrior? [i]Nothing.[/i]