"You crushed my flowers," the Gardener repeated, her voice a whisper that somehow cut through the ringing. Her posture remained unnervingly relaxed, but her gaze, fixed on the flattened patch of glowing roses where Jet had landed, held a glacial fury.
"Flowers?" Jet rasped, forcing himself upright, shaking his head like a dog shedding water. A reckless grin, more snarl than smile, split his face. "Lady, you got bigger problems than your damn gardening!"
He exploded forward. Not a tactical advance, but a raw, furious charge. His boots tore divots in the velvet grass, muscles coiling and releasing with brutal efficiency. He covered the ten meters between them in a heartbeat, fist cocked back, aimed squarely for that unsettlingly serene face.
The Gardener didn't flinch. She tilted her head, auburn hair swaying. A soft sigh escaped her lips, almost bored. As Jet's fist whistled through the air, inches from impact, she opened her mouth.
Not a scream this time. A focused, sharp exhalation.
"Reverberate."
The air rippled.
Not a wave, but a concentrated lance of distorted sound that hit Jet square in the chest.
It felt less like being punched and more like his entire ribcage had been struck by a tuning fork the size of a tree trunk.
The force wasn't concussive; it was invasive, vibrating through bone and muscle with sickening intensity. A choked gasp burst from Jet's lips as his forward momentum reversed violently. He flew backwards, limbs flailing, crashing hard onto his back five meters away with a heavy thud.
Before the dust could settle, Lavender was moving. Not towards the Gardener, but crouching low, her left hand slamming palm-down onto the glowing turf directly between herself and the auburn-haired woman. Her touch pulsed with a sickly violet light that spread like ink through water.
The ground beneath the Gardener's feet didn't just soften; it liquefied.
The vibrant grass and soil instantly transformed into a thick, sucking morass of bubbling black mud that climbed greedily towards her ankles. The Gardener's eyes widened fractionally, the first flicker of surprise breaking her icy composure. She tried to step back, but her boot sank instantly, mud slurping hungrily.
"Tsk."
A dismissive click of her tongue. She didn't struggle. Instead, she took a deep breath, her chest expanding dramatically.
"Seedburst Howl"
The sound wasn't directed at Lavender or Jet, but straight down, into the muck trapping her.
CRACK-THOOOM!
Thick, thorned vines, glowing with an unhealthy green luminescence, erupted violently from the mud around her feet, shattering the mire's cohesion. Using the exploding vines as a springboard, she kicked off with startling grace. For a split second, she hung suspended in the air.
Lavender's right hand was already raised, fingers splayed.
"Got you."
A flick of her wrist.
"Reality Tether."
From the patch of untouched ground near Lavender's feet, not mud but the earth itself flowed upwards, morphing mid-air into thick, interlocking chains of dark, pitted metal.
They shot out with serpentine speed, not towards the Gardener's body, but specifically towards her outstretched hands as she descended.
The chains clanked harshly, the sound jarring in the garden's eerie beauty, wrapping around her wrists with a heavy thunk.
Lavender yanked her hand back sharply.
"Down."
The chains obeyed, snapping taut with brutal force. The Gardener's controlled descent became a violent plummet. She hit the ground shoulder-first with a sickening crunch and a sharp, bitten-off cry of pain, the chains pinning her arms awkwardly behind her back, pulling her partially onto her side. The mud splattered around her.
Jet saw the opening.
He was moving before the Gardener fully hit the dirt.
"My turn, bitch!"
He roared, a feral grin spreading across his face as he closed the distance in two bounding strides. He planted his lead foot, pivoted his hips, and drove his fist with every ounce of regenerated strength towards her exposed temple. This time, no clever tricks would save her.
The Gardener, pinned and dazed, turned her head just enough. Her eyes, wide and furious, locked onto Jet's approaching fist. Her lips parted.
It wasn't a scream. It was a release.
The same skull-splitting pressure as before, but condensed, focused, aimed directly at Jet's face from barely a meter away.
"Skreeeeaaah!"
Jet's punch faltered mid-swing. His eyes rolled back in his head. Blood erupted from his nose and ears. He didn't just fall; he folded, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, landing face-first in the mud inches from the Gardener's head with a wet splat. He lay utterly still.
"Jet!" Eirlys's shriek was raw with terror, cutting through the high-pitched whine still echoing from the focused scream.
The Gardener thrashed against the metal chains binding her wrists, her calm utterly shattered, replaced by primal rage. She snarled, trying to twist onto her back, mud streaking her face and hair. Lavender, already reacting, gestured sharply. Another chain, thicker and heavier, erupted from the ground near Jet's prone form, snaking around his torso.
"Reality Tether"
Lavender hissed, yanking her hand back. The chain snapped taut, dragging Jet's limp body roughly back across the mud, away from the Gardener, towards Eirlys.
Eirlys scrambled forward, grabbing Jet's shoulders as he slid to a stop. "You idiot! Y-You reckless, single-ass moron."
Lavender didn't take her eyes off the Gardener.
More chains were already sprouting from the earth around the pinned woman, lashing out like metallic vipers.
"Reality Tether"
Aiming to entangle her legs, her torso, anything to immobilize her completely. The air filled with the harsh clank and shriek of metal on metal as the Gardener writhed, her boots churning mud, her body a blur of desperate motion.
She avoided the first chain by contorting sideways with impossible flexibility, the heavy links whistling past her ribs.
She kicked off the ground, flipping backwards over the second chain that swept low for her ankles, landing in a low crouch, mud dripping from her chin.
A third chain shot towards her head; she ducked under it with a guttural curse, "Damned pests!", the chain clanging against the stone lip of the passage behind her. Her movements were frantic, fueled by fury and pain, but still terrifyingly precise. She used the chains' momentum against them, kicking off one as it retracted, using the thrust to evade another.
Jet groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows beside Eirlys. Blood matted his hairline, but the terrible angle of his neck was already straightening with audible *cracks* and pops, flesh visibly knitting.
"Ugh... tastes like dirt and regret," he spat, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. "Did I get her?"
Eirlys smacked his shoulder hard. "You nearly got yourself killed, you dumbass! Stop charging in like a b-brain-dead bull!"
Jet managed a weak, lopsided grin, wincing as he rotated his newly healed shoulder.
"Aw, c'mon Snowflake. Worried about me?" He pushed himself fully upright, swaying slightly. "Admit it, you'd miss my pretty face."
Eirlys glared at him, sputtering. "I'd miss the nothing. And I have a b-boyfriend, you i-insufferable—!"
"Enough!"
Lavender's voice cracked like a whip, sharp and cold, cutting through their bickering.
She hadn't stopped moving. While the Gardener danced through the chain barrage, Lavender was altering the terrain.
A stomp of her foot sent spikes of hardened earth erupting in the Gardener's potential path.
A sweep of her hand liquefied another patch of ground into treacherous mud.
She was herding, controlling the space, forcing the Gardener into tighter evasions, her violet eyes tracking every dodge, every stumble. The Gardener was panting now, sweat mixing with the mud on her brow, her apron torn, a dark bruise blooming on her shoulder where she'd hit the ground.
Lavender glanced back, her gaze locking onto Jet. It wasn't a request; it was a command etched in ice.
"Jet. Get Eirlys down that passage. Now."
Jet's grin faded. He flexed his regenerated hand. "But the fun's just—"
"That's an order." Lavender's voice brooked no argument. "Go. I'll handle the gardener."
The Gardener, momentarily free of immediate chain attacks, straightened, breathing heavily. Her eyes, burning with hate, darted between Lavender and the retreating pair near the stairwell. She sucked in a breath, clearly preparing another scream, perhaps aimed at the passage itself.
Jet hesitated for only a fraction of a second, then nodded curtly. "Don't have too much fun without me, boss." He grabbed Eirlys's arm, pulling her towards the dark stairwell. "C'mon, Princess. Playtime's over for us."
"Go!" Lavender snapped, not looking back.
As Jet half-dragged Eirlys towards the yawning darkness of the passage, the Gardener found her voice, ragged but venomous. "You trample my roses, you invade my sanctuary, and now you scurry away like—!"
Lavender moved.
Not a run. Not a step. One moment she was fifteen meters away, near the edge of her spiked terrain.
The next, the air around the Gardener warped with a faint, high-pitched shimmer, and Lavender was simply there, materializing directly in front of her, mid-air, having bypassed the distance instantly.
The Gardener's furious tirade died in her throat, replaced by a shocked gasp. Lavender didn't speak. Her right leg snapped up in a vicious arc, the heel of her boot aimed like a hammer at the Gardener's jaw.
THUD!
The kick connected solidly. The Gardener's head snapped back with brutal force. She stumbled backwards, tripping over a small, half-crushed glowing sprout, and landed hard on her back in the mud. A trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.
Lavender landed lightly a few feet away, her expression utterly cold, violet eyes glowing faintly in the perpetual twilight. She didn't wait. She lunged, her hand outstretched.
The Gardener rolled, scrambling backwards on her elbows, mud smearing her clothes. She spat blood, glaring up at Lavender with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"You... you disruptive weed!" she hissed, pushing herself up. Her hands came up, not in surrender, but poised like claws, vibrating with barely contained sonic energy. The air around them hummed with building pressure.
Lavender settled into a low, balanced stance, chains of dark metal already beginning to coil and slither from the earth around her boots like waiting serpents. A faint, almost imperceptible sigh escaped her lips, the only sign of exertion.
"Let's see how deep your roots go, gardener," Lavender murmured, her voice devoid of warmth.
"Try not to wilt too quickly."