Carl and Alexia VS The Masked Girl

What Cynthia was saying actually made sense.

Illya relayed some information to us at the meetings, that Kire only wanted to avenge his wife, which led him to this city, to stop the Asterios from killing anybody else.

Cynthia is here to kill Illya and reunite with her brother.

Cole is here to exact revenge on Sky for kicking his ass earlier.

Holy shit... what Cynthia said is making sense! All of Quake has its own motives here, but the organization itself was brought to the same place to fulfill them!

"I just want to ask again to get this as clear as possible... you don't want me killing Illya, do you? Either of you... you both want her alive?" Cynthia asked Alexia and me.

Alexia walked to the opposite end of Cynthia, putting her in the middle between the both of us.

"Illya is one of us, I can't let you do that," Alexia said.

Fine...

"Illya has been a pain in our asses ever since we first met her, and I don't know what's right anymore... but if you're not willing to negotiate, then yes, Alexia and I both want her alive," I told Cynthia. She smiled and nodded, summoning two golden sabers, and charging at me.

I rose my gun and she dodged to the left, the battle was beginning!

Alexia shrunk the ground underneath Cynthia with her ability, and right before Cynthia twisted her ankle on the uneven slope of the mountain, she planted her wrist into the mountain, primed her legs with strands, and tried to kick me in the face.

As they exploded past my face and scraped my cheek, I caught a glimpse of her wild eyes glowing in the dim sunlight. It only just occurred to me that I was no match for a Pure-Blooded Asterio... this is as pure as possible, even purer than Illya. This was a force to be reckoned with... but I have Alexia!

Alexia shrunk the strands with her ability that would've decapitated from the attack that scraped my cheek and ran in toward Cynthia, slashing downward toward her flipped body.

Cynthia kicked her saber up in the air, clashing with Alexia, and then turned to me with her hand raised.

Right as her hand raised, I shot my rifle at her, and she didn't react. It went through the center of her hand and pierced bone, blowing it up with the Essence Strands I packed into each bullet.

Twelve Bullets left...

With the downward slope of the mountain, it was hard to catch our footing, but after we caught a pile of rocks with traction, Cynthia and I went back and forth with attacks.

Because of the earlier attack and the weird divot in the mountain, Alexia was enlarging some rocks that were falling down the slope. Boulders were intersecting between Cynthia and me, filling in the space I kept creating to take aim at her.

Once the boulders passed by, my rifle was aimed, and I shot again toward Cynthia's head.

She caught the bullet with her two fingers and attempted to disintegrate it. However, Alexia enlarged the bullet as it was on its way out, and it flickered in Golden Strands, and caused blood to come out of Cynthia's nose. She was wincing in pain, and I took aim once more.

I pulled the trigger of the rifle, and Cynthia punched the dirt in front of her.

The rocks and other pieces of the mountain came up in a burst of the wind from the force of the punch, and the bullet lost trajectory.

Dammit! She was too smart!

As the rocks came up from the strength of her punch, I tried to aim in again... but she was gone?

I quickly turned around, knowing what was coming, and slammed the tip of my combat knife into the palm of her hand that was about to touch the back of my head.

That didn't stop her, and the blood that followed splattered onto my face as I feared the worst. If she touched my head... she would disintegrate me!

I caught a glimpse of Alexia to the right. Her hair was shining, there were markings on her face, and her left hand was held out as the stone's brightness replaced her pale skin glowing in the sunlight.

And Cynthia's entire arm exploded due to her ability.

The air around us started to get hotter and Cynthia slowed down as rocks began to melt under the extreme temperature around her.

"An Asterio Mark... yours is the first I've seen," Cynthia muttered, sweating bullets in the insane heat Alexia was creating.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Alexia shortly said with a hint of distortion in her voice.

"I learned a lot from Fico and the rest of Quake with the short amount of time I was there... that distortion in your voice, you shouldn't allow it to roam free. So far, Shike, Belle, and Buusu have all had a hint of that in the tone of their voices... and now, you?" Cynthia muttered.

With a snap of her fingers, Cynthia's forearms lit up into a golden color, most likely from strands.

However... that wasn't the odd part.

Alexia's weird appearance shifted away and vanished completely. The markings on her face, her unique eye color, her golden saber, it was all gone, while Cynthia was getting brighter.

"If I told you what you were doing, you wouldn't even begin to understand what guilt meant. Your fight is over, Alexia Asterio," Cynthia said to her.

"If I can shoot you... you have to tell us what Alexia just did... just you and me... her fight might be over, but mine is just getting started!" I yelled out.

I am so sick of being on the sidelines... I wanted to be useful, I proclaimed that earlier, and I stood by it. I trained hard for as long as I could to become useful... and here, now that information is flying by my ignorant ears, I would change that for good.

"Deal, but if you can't shoot me in three minutes, I'll kill you," Cynthia told me.

Your hidden information will come out... I can do this...