Wide-eyed, pulling himself back with fumbling hands, terrified, the alchemist shoved a hand in one of his pockets, desperately searching for— something. “You— the Twin Pines Clan won’t stand for this! You won’t get away with—”
“You are a pathetic frog in a well. No—” the disciple stepped once— somehow crossing half the street in that single motion. “That insults frogs by comparison. You’re a worm. A parasitic bloodsucking gnat whose only use is to be ground beneath my feet. Kowtow one hundred times and call me daddy and I might deign to let you live!”
For a moment the alchemist looked confused— before a grin split his bloodied face. “You made a mistake targeting an alchemist of my venerable skill! With this treasure, I summon the strength of the gold dragon of the verdant wilds—” faster than Lily could see, the jade stick he’d held up vanished from his hands, reappearing in the disciple’s hands. “Oh? A dragon scale? This humble disciple thanks you for the donation. It brings me great joy to see the citizens of Saffron support their sect so!” Snarling, the man tried to lunge at her and steal it back, but the disciple danced back, blade twirling in a flourish of impossible grace as she slapped him with the flat side of the blade. “Dogs should know not to bite the hand that feeds them.”
“I’ll kill you—”
“Down, dog.” She planted her boot on his head and with a crash of some life-saving treasure shattering, the street cratered around the alchemist. For a second Lily thought she’d just watched a man die, but no— he was just sprawled out in a blasted hole, thoroughly out for the count. “Well, that was easy. Petty criminals are always good fun… shame there’s not that many of them. Oh well.” She smiled— actually smiled, so different from the aloofness she usually held herself with back home. She looked so much younger. So much more alive.
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“I’m loath to impose, but I will have to ask you to step away from the master.” Lily blinked at the interruption, and by the faint expression of curious surprise on the disciple’s face, she wasn’t the only one who’d been caught off guard. Glancing back at the source… standing there, menacingly framed by the blasted-out wound in the side of the alchemist manor, stood Leo— the golden fruit clenched in one hand. A rush of sudden fear seethed within her— “the Eightfold Yang Golden Dragonfruit is valuable… but it’s only valuable whole.”
For a second, nobody moved. Then, the outer disciple’s good humor slowly bled from her face. “Tell your masters,” she said slowly, “that you stand beneath the aegis of the legacy of immortals.” Lily had thought she’d tasted her killing intent before, but as a bloody haze descended on the street around her and the whole world seemed to transform into a sharp-red realm of wrath, omen— she realized she’d only felt but a fraction. “Sixty eight generations has the Bloody Saffron Sect stood. You tread in the garden of the gods, unknowing as to your savagery; you desecrate the halls of your ancestors and spit on the world you’re given.” The servant was trembling… but as an oily green shield flickered into place around him, Lily realized that it was going to be far from a one-sided fight. “Well.” She grinned, again, all that killing-intent funneling back into her. “At least one of you two had a backbone.”
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Discord.
