"You're laying down?" Dual finally arrived and looked at her companion, prompting Idle to respond from the ground, "Should we get started?"
"Yes, get up. Apex will kill us if we stall," Dual muttered, crossing her arms with an irritated sigh.
"Let's just end this quickly," Idle sighed, levitating upright into the air with total indifference before he opened his mouth to roar toward the peaks.
"Koma Speedhardt!" The echo rang violently through the stones. Inside the fortress, Koma snapped his head toward the entrance with a low growl. He immediately walked out with Kaola and the twins walking behind him.
"Look down there. Two intruders," Lokee whispered, shifting her stance as she locked her gaze onto the perimeter.
"I can barely see them," Koma growled, the distant shapes irritating his focus.
Without another word, he phantom stepped straight to the bottom of the mountain, while Kaola, Hykee, and Lokee moved quickly to keep up with his devastating pace. Koma laughed as he met them, evaluating the intruders with pure arrogance.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Koma demanded, his presence flaring slightly against the cold air.
"My name is Idle and this is— Yeah, yeah, cut the formalities. Today is your last day living, boy!" Dual cut him off mid sentence, stepping right into his line of sight with a dismissive wave and a sharp, mocking grin.
The twins and Kaola fanned out into the clearing, stepping up right behind Koma to completely close the gap. Hykee narrowed his eyes, tracking the sudden shifts in weight as he surveyed the newcomers.
"Who are these two?" Hykee asked, his voice low and calculating.
"I've never seen them before. They don't look like people from the kingdom," Kaola said, shifting her weight as the air around the clearing grew dense.
"I won't be fighting. I'll leave it to them," Lokee said, stepping back to disengage from the clearing entirely.
"Oh? Are you that strong, or are you just scared?" Dual tilted her head, a mocking smile spreading across her lips.
"I hate fighting. I'd rather just watch," Lokee's expression didn't change as she met the gaze of the pink haired killer.
"I can take on all four," Idle looked at the gathering siblings, completely unbothered by the numbers.
"Fine by me. I don't wanna get dirty anyway," Dual shrugged, stepping back to let him take the lead.
Before anyone could move, Idle burst forward with a speed that outpaced Koma and caught him completely off guard. A dark, low laugh escaped his throat as his hand clamped down securely over Kaola's face.
"He's laughing?" Dual muttered in disbelief.
Idle didn't skip a beat, violently hurling the girl straight into a nearby tree. The catastrophic impact cracked the massive timber as her body hit the trunk.
"Kaola!" Lokee shouted, watching her sister crash helplessly into the wood.
"We are the Speedhardt line," Hykee snapped, stepping instantly in front of his twin to block the perimeter.
"Shut up and don't move," Koma told Hykee, cutting him off immediately as he glared across the clearing with a look of pure aggression. In a fraction of a millisecond, Koma lunged forward to grab Idle with raw force, violently throwing him entirely out of everyone's eyesight into the stratosphere.
Lokee walked toward the cracked tree to check on Kaola while Hykee sat down right where he was standing, watching the clearing with an unbothered posture. Dual watched the remaining twin, her focus shifting as she stepped closer to him.
"You're the wielder of that eye that conjures storms," Dual noted, stopping right in front of him.
"And what about it?" Hykee asked, looking up from the ground without moving an inch. Dual walked over and sat down right next to him, her eyes narrowing with intense curiosity as she stared at his face.
"I'd like to see it," she grinned, leaning in close.
"Is that guy your brother?" Hykee asked, completely ignoring her request.
"Unfortunately," Dual sighed, rolling her eyes.
"He'll be dead in ten minutes. You guys underestimated my brother," Hykee stated cleanly.
"Underestimated him? You really think that little throw did anything to a child of a god? Idle is probably floating around sleeping in whatever cloud your brother threw him in," Dual burst out laughing, entirely amused by his confidence.
"Child of a god?" Hykee asked, turning his head slightly as dark clouds began to gather over the mountain.
"Exactly. So don't get arrogant, dirt boy," Dual sneered, leaning her chin in her palm as a dangerous spark flickered in her eyes. "Your brother is just fighting a monster that can't be broken by a physical toss."
"Why are you just watching if you came here to kill us?" Hykee asked, shifting his posture slightly on the dirt.
"Because you have that eye. That thing intrigues me," Dual grinned, her narrow pupils catching the dimming light.
"You're annoying me girl," Hykee flatly said.
"Then stand up and do something about it, or keep sitting there looking pathetic. Besides, Idle wouldn't lose to someone like your brother anyway," Dual countered, a dangerous smirk cutting across her face as she leaned in closer.
She dismissively brushed off his irritation, completely unbothered by his attitude as she watched him with a sharp, mocking gaze.
"We'll see," Hykee muttered, shifting his weight.
From across the clearing, Lokee looked back from Kaola and snapped at her twin in a panic.
Lokee was helping Kaola up, but her attention immediately snapped back to the clearing when she saw her twin refusing to move. Panic flared in her chest.
"Why are you sitting there, Hykee? You never listen to Koma. Stand up and fight!" she yelled.
"Shut up. This girl isn't that strong, and neither is the guy. Just let Koma handle it," Hykee replied without even turning his head.
The blunt dismissal instantly hit a nerve. Dual's lazy expression vanished, her gaze sharpening into something deadly as the sheer disrespect grated against her pride.
"Stand right now or die," Dual whispered, her voice dropping into a lethal chill.
Hykee growled under his breath, finally shifting his weight to push himself up off the dirt.
"Fine. But—"
A hot pink spark erupted violently before the word could leave his mouth. Completely disregarding him, Dual pivoted her focus in a split second and unleashed a devastating wave of thermal heat straight toward the tree line to incinerate Lokee and Kaola where they stood.
Hykee intercepted the trajectory in a flash, his instincts taking over as he materialized right in front of the blast. The concussive impact absorbed straight into his frame, generating a heavy displacement wave that forced Dual back several paces across the cracked earth.
Thick trails of dark smoke billowed off his skin from the direct hit, leaving his bandages semi burnt and smoldering against his torso.
"You're dead. You wanted to see my eye that bad? Nobody strikes my siblings but me," Hykee growled.
He firmly recovered his stance while a violent surge of physical energy erupted around his frame.
"Don't do it! You aren't one hundred percent!" Lokee scrambled back, shouting through the dust.
"Don't worry just heal Kaola," Hykee told her, keeping his focus locked forward.
He reached deep into his mouth, his fingers wrapping around a frozen hilt as he dragged his massive sword straight out of his void.
"Ew, why is your sword inside your body?" Dual asked, her face contorting in genuine disgust.
Hykee ignored her, throwing the weapon high into the air. The blade flipped through the canopy before piercing downward into a sudden, black puddle on the ground.
Simultaneously, the skin across the back of his hand slit open, revealing a cosmic eye that began to weep black tears onto his knuckles while jagged streaks of lightning arced violently across his arms.
"Fascinating," Dual whispered, her disgust vanishing as her smile returned at the sight of the fracturing stone beneath his feet.
Hykee closed the distance instantly, detonating a punch into her frame that launched her across the perimeter like a broken doll.
High above the mountain peaks, Koma and Idle remained locked in a brutal aerial collision. Koma caught the flash of pink fire exploding below, followed instantly by the crackling storm energy tearing through the valley.
"She must've pissed him off if he's already using the eye," Koma muttered, tracking the electrical trails through the clouds.
"Yeah. She talks too much," Idle agreed, floating effortlessly through the atmospheric pressure before throwing a sluggish, casual strike that missed entirely out of sheer boredom.