Forty-Two: Misbehaving Children Must Be Corrected

“I said wait a sec! Why are we suddenly fighting? We were chatting just fine!” Lilith slipped past Abaddon’s strike like a fish through reeds, synced with the Void Command Seat, and sprinted, a white shadow skimming the ground.

“Because I’m bored. In Hell, when we’re bored, we brawl for fun.” Abaddon hounded her like a hunting hawk and summoned a few crimson locusts that swarmed the Little White Dragon like a blood-red cloud.

“Are you from some tribe that never left the Stone Age? Who blows off steam by beating each other up?” Lilith ducked under a locust like a reed bending in wind, then yelled, “Aren’t Demons supposed to be pretty advanced? How’d they raise a menace like you?”

“I don’t like reading. Every time Lord Satan told me to study, I snuck out to play with the street kids.” Abaddon pressed a finger to her cheek and tilted her head, cute as a kitten in moonlight. “There’s a trench-coat big bro on the street who looks super strong. He taught me several awesome martial arts moves.”

“Aren’t you a summoner? Why learn kung fu? And say sorry to Satan!” Lilith shouted while weaving between the locusts like a swallow under eaves. She drew the Shattered Ark to cut the buzzing pests, but the razor edge of the Broken Sword met iron; the blade bounced off a locust’s body like hail off slate, and Lilith froze for a beat like a deer in torchlight.

A locust landed on her shoulder like a burning coal, opened its jaws, and took a hard bite.

“Yah!” The Little White Dragon yelped, pain flaring like a struck nerve. She jolted to life and twisted away, her body flowing like water. The locust bit her three times; the Holy Cloak blocked one, so two neat holes dotted her shoulder like punctured paper.

“It hurts! Call your bugs off!” Lilith glared at Abaddon, anger boiling like a storm cloud, and demanded she stop the nonsense.

“No. I’m not done.” Abaddon stuck out her little tongue, playful as a fox cub. “Make me happy first.”

Tears slid from her eyes like clear pearls. They didn’t fall with gravity. They floated, then snapped forward like bullets and streaked for Lilith.

“Eek!” Lilith’s legs went soft like wet clay. She crouched, small hands over her head like a leaf umbrella, and the tear-rounds hissed past like hornets. Feeling unhit, she dove forward, rolled like a tumbleweed, and sprang up again.

“Cut it out! Please stop! I’ll play with you a different way!” Her voice wavered with a sob, thin as rain on paper.

“Nope. I like this.” Abaddon shook her head and giggled, launching more tear-bullets like a sleet squall. Her hands never slowed as she herded her locusts, weaving a living net that pinched off Lilith’s paths and forced a few stinging hits. “Hehehehe! So fun, so fun, I love chasing people like this!”

“Wah—don’t come any closer!” Lilith glanced back in fright, the Demon girl laughing and crying like a broken music box, madness shining like cold moonlight.

“Don’t run! Play a game with me!”

Time crawled like resin. Abaddon chased Lilith in circles for what felt like forever.

The Little White Dragon was quicker, a white arrow in wind. But Abaddon set three locusts like roadblocks, so bruises bloomed on Lilith like plum blossoms in frost.

“Hey!” Abaddon flicked another tear-bullet. Three locusts locked the only route, fencing Lilith like stakes. She had nowhere to run and had to eat the hit.

“Enough! I’m really mad now!”

The tear-bullet struck a black silhouette that surged up behind Lilith like a shadow from a bonfire. The Little White Dragon saw the tall Knight-Commander beside her and went quiet. Then her voice snapped with a new anger, sharp as breaking ice.

“I told you to stop. You didn’t. Don’t blame me for being rough. I won’t hold back.”

Lilith patted the Knight-Commander’s shoulder, reclaimed the phantom like drawing breath, and pulled it back into herself. “I’ve got her. Go rest, Captain.”

“Be careful. Don’t get yourself hurt too badly. You can’t heal like before.” The Knight-Commander’s voice lingered like a hand on her back, then he slipped into Lilith’s body and vanished like fog.

“Now...” Lilith slid the Astrolabe at her waist and gripped the Shattered Ark with both hands. Her head dipped; long bangs fell like a curtain, hiding her eyes and chilling the air. “Time to teach a brat a lesson.”

“Disobedient children get their butts spanked.”

“What are you talking about? No one’s spanking me.” Abaddon planted her fists on her hips, smug as a cat on a wall. “Be good, little dragon, and play with—eek!”

Her words snapped like a twig. The edge of the Shattered Ark was already at her face, cold as new snow.

Abaddon jolted, but a locust was at hand. The crimson bug shot up on command and blocked the cut like a shield of iron.

“Heh, useless. That broken blade of yours can’t cut my locusts. Speed means nothing if—” Abaddon threw her chin up, pride bright as a lantern.

The Broken Sword had bounced, yes. But now it glowed with a different light, like dawn breaking over steel. Lilith swung again. The locust left hanging in air couldn’t dodge at all. Its iron-hard shell parted in one stroke like silk, and it dropped in two dead halves.

“What?” Abaddon’s eyes widened like saucers. That broken sword couldn’t scratch her locusts a breath ago. How was it suddenly this sharp?

“One minute thirty,” Lilith murmured, voice flat as stone.

“W-what did you say...” Abaddon missed it, but the Little White Dragon felt changed, like night flipping to noon. Her strength surged like a rising tide. Her cheer died to silence like embers under ash.

“I’ll defeat you in one minute thirty. Then I’ll tan your backside. You’ll learn what’s right and what’s wrong.” Her voice drifted to Abaddon’s ear like a wraith out of Hell, cold enough to raise gooseflesh.

“Impossible! You can’t beat me! I’m Abaddon, the second-strongest in the world!” Abaddon rallied like a drumbeat and lifted her hand, calling more locusts like a red squall. “My subjects, fight for me!”

Lilith said nothing. She tightened on the Shattered Ark, but her focus settled on her lower belly, on a feather pattern there, strange as frost-flowers on glass.

This was a pocket world. There was no Star Canvas to drink Star Energy from, not like under open sky. But she could do something neither Morris nor Udis ever let her do.

Create a constellation.

Once she resonated with a constellation, she became part of it, like a note in a chord. If there were no stars above, she could be the star. As long as there was still a sky overhead, the Void Command Seat could hang above the White Dragon like a silent throne.

A feather woven of ghost-blue starlight unfurled in the sky like a nocturne. Lilith’s grip steadied like a nail. She tapped her toes and shot for Abaddon like lightning hugging the ground.

“Ueeh!” Abaddon cried, driving her locusts to meet the blade like a hurried levy, then ran on her short legs like a rabbit fleeing thunder.

Abaddon was slower to begin with, and Lilith was faster now, a gale over grass. Catching her was easy as stepping through mist. The summoned locusts fell one stroke at a time, each kill a clean click, barely a breath of delay.

The little dragon sprinted like low flight, belly to earth. The loose locust net couldn’t hold the wind; she burst it apart like a wave through reeds. Those off-line she shouldered aside like doors. Those in front she skewered, leaving half a body twitching like a cut vine.

“Uuu!” Abaddon glanced back and saw a white meteor butcher her locusts and streak for her, terror blooming like black ink in water. She slapped the ground and raised a purple void vortex like a storm eye, then crouched, hugged her head, and hid behind the dark, praying it would keep her from a spanking.

Crack. Abaddon looked up. A fissure crawled across the void like lightning on glass. She covered her mouth and clenched a locust tight, knuckles pale as bone.

Crack! The blade of the Shattered Ark pushed through the void like a spear through ice, the next stroke sure to split the dark-violet vortex.

“Eek!” Abaddon shook her head, praying the void would hold like winter lake ice.

Crack. Prayer failed like smoke in wind. The white whelp cleaved the vortex, stepped through the shattered barrier like a ghost, and poked her head in.

“Here's Johnny!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Abaddon screamed, the sound bursting like a firecracker in a temple courtyard.