Chapter 174: A Minute of Your Time

Will noted the sound of shuffling clothes come to an end, indicating that she was dressed.

“Alright, miss Onacona, dressed?”

No answer.

“Can we talk or is this gonna be one of those-“

A wicked hunting knife burst through the door, followed by the rest of the fae, as easily as someone stepping through a water curtain streaming off the eaves of a house.

Will had heard the steps toward the door, and the air as it parted, so he caught her wrist and pulled the arm down low before letting go and hitting her in the face with his elbow.

Or, that was the plan.

The Fae lord practically folded in half to avoid the strike before unwinding like a spring, her feet cutting furrows through the rough-hewn porch before whistling up under Will’s jaw.

Will leaned out of the way of her kick and sent two cannonballs at point-blank range.

Onacona exploded into white mist around the cannonballs and reformed into a jackrabbit, bouncing away from him with an erratic pattern that made it nearly impossible to keep a bead on her until-

Crap-

Two furry paws hit him in the kneecap with the force of one of his own cannonballs.

Will’s heel dug a furrow through the wood and he went tumbling backwards, his body spinning wildly to disperse the force.

Kneecap’s…not busted. That’s good, Will gave silent thanks for the ring of Resistance as he grabbed the air and yanked himself to the side, the place where he had been about to land exploding with the arrival of an angry jackrabbit.

“Now miss,” Will said, pulling his tomahawk out of his belt loop as he rose to his feet in midair. “I’m going to ask you to calm down and stop attacking me.”

The rabbit looked straight at him and screamed a high pitched, inhuman scream, and the world shifted.

The sky above turned grey, and big, fat flakes of frozen water began raining down from above.

Snow, I think it was. Will hadn’t seen much in the desert around the Tower, with the exception of last winter, when ice fell off the stars as they reoriented for winter solstice.

But they didn’t look like this.

The ‘snow’ seemed to have some kind of sense-dulling effect, both magical and nonmagical. It deadened the sound around them and covered every inch of his vision with moving white things.

“You sure you should be pissing her off like that?” Travis asked, peeking inside the cabin. “Ooh, jerky.” Travis ducked inside the cabin and began rifling through the fae lord’s things.

As the rabbit charged, Travis popped back out with a bag full of preserved meats, what looked like a bottle of homemade blueberry mead, and dragging a rocking chair behind him.

The Master Decoy leaned back and plopped down onto the rocking chair on the porch, throwing his feet up and watching the fight. Totally unguarded, and yet completely unharmed.

“Why is she not attacking you!?” Will demanded, blocking a feral strike before cutting off the tip of one of the jackrabbit’s ears.

Its fur had gone white, and the longer they fought, the harder it was to see his opponent due to the rapidly accumulating snow.

“Two reasons: I’m running inversed Center of Attention, and you’re way more dangerous than me. She probably decided to kill me soon as she’s done with you. I figure either I’m dead here, or this’ll all play out okay.”

Travis took a swig of his purloined mead.

“Wow. You’ve really mellowed out.” Will said, circling to watch Onacona, who had changed form to a white fox and was blazing around the battlefield like a bolt of white lightning.

“In some ways, yeah. Oh, it’s fizzy. Did you use a champagne yeast for this, or did you just get lucky with this batch?” Travis called to the Fae Lord.

“Godsdamnit Travis!” Will shouted, wrestling the ball of fur away from his neck before it bounded away, disappearing into the suddenly snowy background. “You better save some of that for me!”

“No-UuUrp-pomises.” Travis said, taking another swig.

He knows how dangerous stealing their food is, right? Will thought, as he battled the shapeshifter.

Travis was known for being flippant and annoying, but he wouldn’t kick himself in the balls quite that hard, so this was probably setup for something…

Ah. I see what he’s doing. I need her back to her humanoid form so we can talk. How can we accomplish that-OWL!

Will pivoted as a roc-sized white owl manifested out of the blizzard and tried to spear him with sword-length talons like he was a mouse.

Will ducked the attack and shot five cannonballs into the owl, which exploded into mist again.

Okay. Those claws definitely would’ve done some damage. Maybe not as much as she was hoping because of my Resistance, but they would’ve stayed solid long enough to hurt me.

Attack the attack? Will mused.

Will played hide-and seek for a minute until she tried the owl thing again.

Will sent cannonballs straight into the approaching claws, which burst into mist before re-forming directly in front of his face.

Damnit!

Will threw his hands in front of his neck and groin.

At the last second, the claws spread themselves wide, and collapsed around Will, aiming to spear him from behind.

Should I switch to the Coiled Serpent amulet and teleport out of this or…

Nah, we can still make this work. Better, even. With 400 Resistance, Will’s body was basically as strong as a cannonball. Why have I never thought of this before?

“GAH!”

The air was crushed out of Will’s lungs as the giant owl clamped its claws down on his back, barely piercing his skin.

Got a nice firm grip? Will thought as the owl began flying at speed across the snow-covered forest.

Me too.

Will grabbed his arms and legs with his snakes and wrenched himself forwards.

OW!

The bird let out a sudden screech as the sudden force tugging on its prey caused it to tumble end over end and smash face-first into a copse of trees.

The world spun, turning white brown and grey as sky, earth and snow was jumbled beyond recognition.

An instant later the cage of talons around him vanished in a puff of mist, and Will was released to continue flying forward, smashing through a tree.

Everything I’ve done so far has been hidden from this floor by Homefield advantage, but what happens when it comes back and I have her shit in my Dimensional Storage? Will it put it together that I stole it? The risk is too high for me to hang onto these…under these circumstances.

Will dragged himself to his feet, feeling blood trickle down his back as the Fae lord climbed out of a pile of shattered conifers, glaring at him with unnatural intensity.

She glanced down at the circle of smooth ice around Will, her gaze flickering back up to Will’s amulet.

Shit.

Will dumped the bow and cloak from his Dimensional Storage and dismissed Homefield Advantage just as a massive fist of miasmatic energy closed down around his territory, like a gauntleted fist around a soap bubble.

Will was afraid his amulet might’ve been destroyed from the backlash if he hadn’t.

“You think you have mastered the land when you simply use trinkets to bend to your will?” She demanded, her eyes wide, hair standing on end. “I AM THE LAND!”

 The earth beneath him began to rumble.

No.

Will planted his foot and gained a foothold.

The rumbling ceased as a quarter-mile in every direction was locked down.

Oooh, she’s pissed.

Onacona dove forward like a diver into a pool, disappearing into the ground.

Will felt a portion of the earth wrench itself out of his grasp an instant before a spear of stone erupted out of the ground, aimed at his chest.

Never had earth spears happen to me before, Will thought, dodging the attack, favoring the side that led him closer to the Fae Lord’s relics.

As expected, the fae lord jumped out of the spear, sprinting for her gear, neck-and-neck with Will.

Will kicked the cloak out of her range, expecting it to be more dangerous to him.

Weapons did weapon things. Cloaks were more likely to provide the weird effect that acted as the keystone in a synergistic effect that made people disappear in a burst of feathers.

Plus she doesn’t have any arrows.

Onacona grabbed the bow, summersaulted, and pulled the string back while upside-down, an arrow of bone, talon and owlfeather appearing, nocked against the string.

Murder in her eyes.

My bad.

Will slid himself unnaturally to the side, using Phantom Snakes to tug his body to and fro, juking with unnatural speed as three bone arrows whistled past him before she even landed.

Debt was back on the table, and the Floor hadn’t seen him trespass in her home or steal her things, so hopefully, the Debt would see him trying to take a bow as a response to someone trying to kill him with it.

No fault there.

Will grabbed the bow with two Phantom Snakes and yanked it out of her hand.

Or he meant to.

Onacona shouted in rage as she ragdolled after the bow, suddenly accelerating fast enough to tear a limb off a mortal.

Will changed direction with the bow and smashed it directly into the Fae Lord’s face.

Multiple times.

Her scream of rage turned into the screeching of a great owl as she let go of the bow.

“Now, I’m going to hold onto this until you’re ready to talk,” Will said, bringing the bow to his hand. “And I’ll give it back to you before I leave.” Will felt the Debt bind him to that statement, letting him off the hook for stealing the weapon as an act of self-defence.

The owl spread her wings wide and flapped them once, creating a tornado of snow, imbued with miasmatic energy and deadly intent.

That doesn’t look great, I-

Will went to move and noticed roots winding around his feet.

Fu-

Will threw his cloak over his head, but a bit of his ear was exposed to the sudden storm, empowered by the Fae Lord’s power, and it froze solid in a matter of seconds before the magical attack flowed past him.

Will shuddered violently as his Phantom Snakes yanked him out of the grasp of the roots and up into the air.

“You’re alive!” Onacona said, returning to her humanoid form and sprinting towards her cloak. “How!?”

“T-tough s-s-sonovabitch,” Will shuddered, resisting the urge to curl into a ball as his snakes caught him up with her and played keepaway with the cloak for a hot minute.

Once his limbs were no longer numb, Will threw his tomahawk at her, and caught it behind her back with a snake before burying the axe in her spine.

Onacona’s eyes widened in surprise for an instant before her expression froze into wood as she…turned into a tree.

Huh.

Onacona burst out of a nearby tree and caught Will with a feral swipe to the side of his face, shattering off part of his frozen ear.

Will didn’t feel it, the only way he knew was because he saw chunks of it flying away.

Damnit.

Will caught her with a kick to the chest, but it did next to nothing.

His Strength was far below hers, just like her Strength was far below his Resistance.

Are we just going to keep toying with each other forever?

Just as he was thinking that, Onacona must’ve been thinking the same, kicking away from him and turning her attention to Travis.

“You! Trespasser!” She said, pointing at Travis, and Will could feel the Debt swirl around her before launching towards Travis like a living thing. “You’ve trespassed in my home, eaten my food without permission, and violated the pact of Hospitality. Your Debt is mine. I command you: help me retrieve my cloak.”

Travis glanced at the two of them, squinting to see through the blizzard.

“…Nah.” Travis said, standing. The bag of dried meats, rocking chair and bottle of mead disappearing into motes of light, followed by Travis himself.

The real Travis appeared on the other side of the cabin’s porch, leaning against a rough-hewn post that supported the moss-covered eaves.

“I didn’t do any of that.”

Onacona paled.

“But you know, it’s very rude to accuse people of such things when they haven’t done them. I would say you owe me. Not much…a minute of your time for a short conversation, perhaps?” Travis asked.

Onacona’s expression went flat and she slumped in place, dragging her hand over her face with a pained groan.

“…Whatever.”

With a gesture, the blizzard swirling around them died.

“Time starts now. One minute, then I kill you both. What do you trespassers want?” She asked, arms crossed.

“I’m gonna kill Kincaid tomorrow.” Will said. “Wanna come watch?”

A single black brow rose. She looked Will up and down, obviously recalling their brawl.

“…Yes. I’d like to see that. You’ve got fifty seconds.”

“Travis, time to go,” Will said, seeing their exit window sliding shut.

“So do you ever visit the keep? You know, for supplies and stuff?” His exfil specialist asked.

“Yes. Forty seconds.” Onacona said.

“Would you be interested in getting lunch or someTHAAAAAAAA!”

Will interrupted Travis by hauling both of them into the sky and retreating before she stopped holding back.

Will was 100% sure she was using that time to devise a means to kill them both and the amount of raw power she had meant she may very well succeed.

Best leave her territory during the truce.