The Gardener surged upwards, mud dripping from her chin like brown tears. A guttural snarl ripped from her throat as her clawed hands snapped forward.
"Thorn Choir."
The earth erupted around Lavender. Not gentle vines, but barbed whips of hardened wood tipped with glistening thorns, lashing in from all sides like the limbs of an enraged kraken.
Lavender didn't flinch.
A soft 'tsk' escaped her lips. Her left hand flicked out, palm open.
"Unweave."
Where her fingers brushed the nearest thorn-whip, it didn't break; it dissolved. The wood blurred, losing cohesion, crumbling into harmless sawdust that scattered on the disturbed air before it could touch her.
She pivoted on foot, her right hand lashing out in a blur.
Crack!
Her knuckles connected solidly with the Gardener's ribs as the woman leaned into her scream-summoning. A sharp, pained grunt burst from the Gardener, the forming scream choked off. She staggered back, clutching her side, eyes wide with shock at the speed.
"Predictable," Lavender murmured, already moving. She didn't pursue directly. Instead, her boot stamped down hard.
"Edit Field."
The patch of ground five feet behind the stumbling Gardener liquefied instantly into a wide, sucking pit of shimmering black ooze.
The Gardener sensed it, twisting mid-stagger. Her eyes, wide with fury and now a flicker of panic, darted to the trap. She sucked in a ragged breath, voice raw.
"Wailwalk!"
Her form blurred, dissolving into a streak of vibrating sound that shot towards the nearest cluster of crystalline trees. She rematerialized amidst them, leaning against a trunk, gasping, one hand still pressed to her bruised ribs. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth where Lavender's boot had connected earlier. "Damn... you!" she spat.
Lavender was already gone. A faint shimmer in the air near the trees, a high-pitched zing, and she reappeared directly above the Gardener, dropping like a violet shadow. Her leg snapped down in a brutal axe kick aimed at the crown of her head. The air whistled around her descending heel.
"Ironroots!" The Gardener bellowed, desperation edging her voice as she slammed her palms against the crystalline trunk. A visible pulse of green energy surged through the tree and into her legs. Her stance solidified, rooted impossibly to the spot. Lavender's heel slammed down onto her upraised forearms with a bone-jarring CRUNCH!
The Gardener grunted, a choked cry escaping her as her knees buckled slightly under the impact, but she held, the ground cracking around her feet. She glared up, hatred burning in her eyes, teeth bared in a bloody grimace. "You persistent insect!"
Before Lavender could retract her leg, the Gardener opened her mouth wide. Not a scream, but a sharp, focused expulsion.
A visible ripple of distorted air, like a heat-haze whip, sliced horizontally towards Lavender's waist, aiming to bisect her at the torso.
Lavender's eyes narrowed. She didn't dodge. Her free hand shot down, palm facing the sonic blade.
"Mana Lattice Reversal."
A violet hexagon flickered into existence inches from her palm for a fraction of a second. The sonic whip struck it – and inverted.
SCREECH!
Instead of slicing Lavender, it rebounded violently back towards the Gardener.
The Gardener's eyes flew wide in genuine terror. She tried to twist, still rooted, but too slow. The reversed sonic energy slammed into her left shoulder. Not a cut, but a brutal impact that shattered the bark near her hand and spun her violently sideways with a choked, guttural scream.
The 'Ironroots' broke with a sickening snap of phantom roots. She crashed into another tree, splintering its lower branches, landing hard on her back in a shower of glowing splinters, gasping wetly. Her left arm hung limp, clearly dislocated, bone pressing grotesquely against skin.
Lavender landed lightly, already advancing with predatory grace. Chains erupted from the earth around the dazed Gardener – not to bind, but to impale.
"Reality Tether."
The dark metal chains morphed mid-thrust, tips sharpening into cruel, barbed points aimed at her torso and legs. They hissed through the air.
The Gardener rolled desperately, a scream of pure, unadulterated rage tearing from her ruined throat. "Cataclysmic Wail!"
It wasn't aimed at Lavender. It was aimed down, at the ground beneath her own body. The sonic detonation was colossal, a visible shockwave of pure force erupting downwards. The earth heaved, throwing the Gardener upwards like a ragdoll and obliterating the incoming chains into molten shrapnel that sprayed outwards. The shockwave ripped outwards, flattening flowers, cracking trees, and forcing Lavender to skid back several feet, her arms crossed defensively in front of her face, a low, strained grunt escaping her as the pressure wave hammered into her.
"Seems you don't like your precious garden." Lavender mocked.
The Gardener landed awkwardly twenty feet away, rolling to her feet with agonizing slowness, cradling her dislocated arm. Her breath came in ragged, wet gasps. Mud, blood, splinters, and scorch marks covered her ruined apron. Her auburn hair was matted to her face with sweat and grime. She spat a thick glob of blood and phlegm onto the grass.
"You... vile... rot" she rasped, swaying slightly. Her right hand trembled as she raised it, fingers vibrating erratically.
"Glasslung!" she shrieked, focusing her remaining power on Lavender's head.
Lavender simply tilted her head a fraction. The focused sonic lance, designed to shatter bone and enchantments, struck the air where she had been.
Lavender herself was already sidestepping with effortless economy of motion, the distortion passing harmlessly by her ear with a faint whine.
"Wasted effort," she stated coldly, not even breathing hard.
The Gardener's face contorted in despair and fury. She slapped her good hand against the ground.
"Floral Dirge!" The command was a wet gasp. The air around Lavender bloomed with lethal intent. Razor-sharp petals, shimmering with virulent green light, erupted from the ground in a dense, swirling vortex designed to flense flesh from bone.
Lavender sighed, a faint, almost bored exhalation. She didn't move. Instead, her form seemed to fracture for a split second.
"Fractured Echo."
A perfect, violet afterimage of Lavender appeared exactly where she stood, caught in the swirling maelstrom of razor petals. The real Lavender materialized five feet to the left, untouched, watching dispassionately.
The petals shredded the afterimage, causing a localized spatial warp – a brief, disorienting shimmer that tore several nearby razor petals apart and scattered the rest harmlessly. The distortion washed over the real Lavender without effect.
The Gardener stared, her defiance crumbling into slack-jawed horror. "H-How...? Impossible...!" Her voice was a broken whisper.
Lavender stepped closer, boots silent on the churned earth. "Your Expression is simply noise. I'm just silencing it."
Her right leg snapped out in a lightning-fast, piston-driven side kick.
THUD-CRACK!
It connected perfectly with the Gardener's jaw, snapping her head back with brutal force and flipping her onto her back with a heavy, final whump.
She lay utterly still for a long moment, stunned into silence, staring blankly at the looping sky, blood bubbling from her split lip and nose. A low, pained moan finally escaped her.
Lavender loomed over her, a statue of violet ice.
"Reality Tether."
Heavy chains, thick as a man's wrist, erupted, coiling around the Gardener's ankles and wrists with crushing force before slamming them down, pinning her spread-eagled to the churned, muddy earth. The Gardener struggled weakly, a pathetic whimper escaping her, her dislocated arm twisting awkwardly, tendons standing out in her neck. "N-No... let... go..." she slurred, her voice thick with blood and defeat.
Lavender crouched beside her head, her violet eyes cold and analytical, devoid of pity. She didn't speak immediately. Instead, she gestured with two fingers. Another chain, thinner but just as unyielding, snaked upwards from the mud near the Gardener's shoulder and coiled tightly around her lower face, gagging her, pressing hard against her jaw and cheeks. The Gardener's eyes bulged in fresh panic, muffled cries escaping the metal bindings.
"Mmmph! Gllkk!"
"Quiet," Lavender commanded, her voice flat.
She reached out and placed her bare fingertips lightly on the Gardener's forehead, just above the chain gag. Her touch was icy.
"Structural Sight."
Her eyes glowed faintly violet, not just seeing the bruises, broken bones, and dislocated shoulder, but perceiving the chaotic symphony of the Gardener's Screamroot resonance – the pulsing sonic nodes, the fractured pathways overloaded by her own desperate attacks, the inherent instability amplified by her possessive rage for the garden.
Lavender's gaze lingered on a specific, chaotic knot of dissonant energy near the Gardener's sternum – a flaw born of deep-seated insecurity and the stolen life force sustaining the garden.
A cruel, knowing smile touched Lavender's lips. She leaned closer, her whisper carrying the chill of the abyss. "I see the cracks. The rot within your song. Now... information. Worthy information. Or I will make you *feel* every flaw."
Without waiting for a response the Gardener couldn't give, Lavender pressed her index finger firmly against a pressure point just below the Gardener's collarbone – a nexus point her Structural Sight revealed as hyper-sensitive to vibrational disruption.
"Fractal Lock."
A subtle violet pulse emanated from her fingertip, not causing physical damage, but locking her disruptive resonance into the Gardener's nervous system.
The effect was immediate and horrific. The Gardener's body arched off the ground as much as the chains allowed, a silent scream tearing through her gagged mouth, visible only in the straining cords of her neck and the absolute terror in her wide, bloodshot eyes. Her limbs trembled violently. It was the sensation of her very being glitching, destabilizing. Tears streamed down her mud-caked cheeks. The chains clanked and groaned with her convulsions.
Lavender held the contact for ten agonizing seconds, watching dispassionately, then withdrew her finger. The Gardener collapsed back, utterly spent, trembling uncontrollably, her breath coming in ragged, wet sobs behind the gag. Lavender waited, letting the residual terror sink in. Finally, she made a small gesture. The chain gagging the Gardener loosened slightly, retracting just enough from her mouth to allow strained speech, though it still bound her jaw tightly.
"Talk," Lavender ordered, her voice devoid of inflection. "Who sent the teleportation trap? Who else knows we're here?"
The Gardener spat a mouthful of blood and phlegm, her eyes blazing with hatred despite her broken state. "G-Go... fuck yourself," she rasped, her voice shredded and weak but defiant. "Y-You won't... last... an hour... after what you've done... t-to me... They'll... tear you... apart..." She tried to muster another curse, but it dissolved into a wet cough.
Lavender's expression didn't change. "Unwise." Her hand shot out, not to strike, but to clamp over the Gardener's mouth and nose, her fingers pressing hard, sealing off her airway while the chain still bound her jaw. The Gardener's eyes bulged again, muffled choking sounds escaping Lavender's grip as she struggled futilely against the chains. Lavender held it, counting silently, watching the panic intensify, the veins standing out on the Gardener's forehead. Just as the struggling began to weaken, Lavender released her grip and reactivated the Fractal Lock at the same point, sending another wave of nerve-shattering disruption through the Gardener's system.
This time, the convulsions were weaker, punctuated by weak retching sounds. When it subsided, the Gardener lay limp, whimpering, broken beyond defiance. Lavender watched her, the violet glow fading from her eyes as she processed what she'd observed during the torture and the fight.
"You didn't know me," she stated, a statement of fact, not a question. "Didn't recognize my face. Only reacted because of the flowers. Because Jet crushed your precious roses." She tilted her head slightly. "But the teleportation trap... that was intentional. Targeted. Yet you you didn't know us. Why?"
The Gardener blinked sluggishly, tears still leaking. "N...No meeting..." she gasped, each word an effort. "D-Didn't... attend... the briefing... T-Too busy... with the... Grove..." A flicker of bitter resentment crossed her battered features. "What... can you... even do... with that?" She managed a weak, bloody sneer. "Y-You're... dead... anyway..."
Lavender's lips curved in a humorless smile. She reached down and, with surprising gentleness, brushed a clump of mud-matted auburn hair from the Gardener's forehead. "Hmmm. Truly, I don't know what I'd do with it. But it's... something." Her hand lingered for a moment, tracing the line of the Gardener's cheekbone almost tenderly, a stark contrast to the violence. "And you're such a cootie. Such a shame." Her voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "Beautiful, powerful... wasted potential. But you're still related to him. So it must be done."
The Gardener's eyes widened slightly, a spark of horrified understanding flashing through the pain. "Y-You... you'll regret...! He'll—!"
Lavender's hand clamped back over her mouth, cutting off the threat. The violet light flared briefly in her eyes again.
"Unweave." This time, the command was whispered, final.
There was no dramatic explosion, no visible disintegration. The Gardener simply... ceased. Her body lost cohesion, blurring at the edges like a faulty projection. Her wide, terrified eyes fixed on Lavender were the last distinct features before they too dissolved into shimmering motes of violet-tinged dust that settled onto the churned mud where she had lain. The heavy chains holding nothing clattered loosely to the ground with a final, mournful clank.
Lavender stood slowly, brushing a speck of non-existent dust from her sleeve. She looked down at the empty space where the Gardener had been, her expression unreadable. A faint sigh, almost imperceptible, escaped her lips.
Then, without warning, the grass directly beneath her feet rippled. Not like earth, but like disturbed water. A perfect circle, three meters wide, etched itself into the ground in lines of pure, blinding white light. Lavender's eyes snapped down, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing her face for the first time.
"Wha—?"
She had no time to react. The circle dropped, opening into a swirling vortex of absolute darkness.
Lavender plummeted instantly, swallowed whole by the void. The circle snapped shut above her, leaving only the churned earth, the broken chains, and the eerie, looping sunset. The garden was silent once more.