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Nicole Arnswold found herself in a world without color. It was the streets of Newport, she realized, as she staggered down the grey city road. In place of the bright orange sun, a searing white penny lay in its place; instead of the normal brine in the air, she smelled nothing but rot and deterioration; instead of people in the streets, there were only corpses, black with death and corruption. This was how it was. Everywhere.

Some of the bodies she vaguely recognized, others she hadn't. No words escaped their mouths, but their expressions all said the same thing, you did this to me. She shuddered whenever she saw such an expression, and tried to look away. But no matter where she set her steps, no matter how much road passed behind her, she could not escape this harrowing wasteland. So she just continued, uncertain of where she was going, or why she was even walking.

She wanted Inigo, she realized. Ma'heed, Geoffrey, Faula too. She wanted to see those awkward scholars, or Weisen, Sada even... she stopped. Feeling the burning gazes of all the town's dead, she found herself praying, despite that she believed in no god. She prayed for somebody to come, anybody who could bring some color to the endless limbo. And then, as if some otherworldly being had heard her prayers, she felt the presence of another behind her appear suddenly. The being spoke out. Its voice was a soft airy alto, brimming with confidence, and one that she had thought she would never hear in her life again.

"I've always found these colorless worlds to be rather passé, don't you agree?"

Like a rusty hinge, Nicole turned around with a ghastly face to address the being that lay behind her. The woman who stood in front of her was the one person she truly rued to meet; the only person who could turn the purgatory of the world into something more wretched. She had wished for a person, and that is what she had received.

"Adriana..." the name slipped out of Nicole's mouth, unbidden and full of years of forgotten spite and hatred. It was her: the sixth Alarice.

Adriana's beauty was one of her aspects that Nicole was never able to match, and it became painfully obvious as she stood before her in her full, colored glory. Her face was round yet radiant, flushes of a rosy color to her tanned skin. Her cheekbones and jaw were firm and shapely, and there was a delicate grace to her tiny curved nose. Her honey brown eyes held at a slight slant, radiating power, vitality. It all amounted to a soft but alluring aspect of her visage, one that had veiled the merciless nature of her character for many years.

She wore a rich blue-dyed silken gown that clung tightly to her lean frame and firm breasts, exposing her shoulders and accentuating her curves. Her black gloves were of a similar silken substance, contrasting perfectly with her white cigarette holder. She sported a pair of high heels shoes were of some iridescent clear material, which sparkling brighter than the white sun itself, as did the necklace of diamonds and emeralds that hung down her slender neck. Her rich raven hair slanted down the right of her face from the top left, and flowed halfway down to her shoulders.

"That's my name, don't wear it out..." the stunning woman coed before taking a deep drag of her cigarette. Somehow the smoke that escaped Adriana's mouth seemed to be blacker than any of this dreamscape's corruption. Looking over Nicole's person with a disapproving frown, she spoke, "My, you look like you've been through hell. Such an appearance is unfitting for the current Alarice, I would say. Beauty has always been one of the strongest weapons of women; you waste yours."

Nicole felt the heat of Adriana's words crawl down her spine, and her hands clenching into a fists. "Go haunt somebody else's dreams..." Nicole was surprised to hear that word come out of her mouth: dream. That's right, this was a dream, wasn't it? But then, why did everything seem so real?

"Haunt?" Adriana aped with mockery, her head tilting and brows furrowing in offense. And then immediately Adriana's being dispersed into nothing. Suddenly she was behind Nicole, her hands gently grasping her shoulders, causing her to lock up in place. Adriana's head lurched forward, now hovering above Nicole's shoulder, the heat of the darker woman's gaze becoming all too real. Nicole met Adriana's overpowering gaze with great fear; somehow it seemed as though she were looking at a reflection of herself, only one that was more pure in its darkness. The elegant woman spoke softly, but with an undercurrent of prideful malice. "Do you take me for some sort of petty phantasm? Just a simple apparition of the past you thought you buried so long ago? 'Haunt someone else' you say. Oh, sweet Nicole, have you already forgotten what I told you? We're two different faces of the same being. You'll never get rid of me, because I am you."

The air felt thin as Nicole took a labored breath, furious. Even in this dream world, Adriana's managed to sap her surroundings. "I am nothing like you."

The answer seemed to please her. "That is exactly what you said to me all those years ago... hmm, perhaps you do remember." Adriana let go of Nicole's shoulders, but inexplicably she could still feel their impression pressing down on her, crushing and smothering her without a grip. "Come," Adriana beckoned as she walked toward one of the four paneled windows of a grey manor, one that was not there mere seconds ago. Somehow, Nicole found herself incapable of disobeying her former master's words, and reluctantly approached the window, surprised to see color in the building's interior, which seemed so familiar to the manor she had owned for the past ten years.

This was my home, and once Adriana's as well, Nicole realized.

They were looking inside to Nicole's study, but it was older, like it was so long ago, when all those ugly portraits of the previous Alarices were still hung proudly to the burgundy walls. The room was occupied by two unmoving women, static in place: one, dressed in black leather armor, pointed a pistol at the other, who stood up with one hand on the desk... that one was Adriana, and the one with the pistol was... herself? Yes, it was, it was Nicole Arnswold, only it was a younger version, one with fire burning brightly in her eyes. Nicole found her eyes fixated on her younger self, yet another ghost from her past. Slowly then, her essence was sucked into the room, and she found herself one with her past self.

*

"Sit down," Nicole spoke with a fierce authority. The time was finally upon her. All those vile years of waiting, of silence, of duty to this viper of a woman were coming to an end. Finally, she would have her revenge.

Warily, Adriana complied, sitting herself down with a slow caution. Her answer was steady, calculated, "How did you get past my guards?"

"Oh, it was quite easy when you know exactly who takes what shift when... I suppose I have Geoffrey to thank for that information."

Adriana's eyes darkened with disbelief. "Geoffrey? One of my personal guards... He's been under my tutelage since he was sixteen; he was a broken puppet with nobody left and I controlled him. Why would he betray me after so many years of service...?"

Nicole couldn't help but smile just a little. "Oh, it did take quite some time to convince him. You're quite skilled at mental indoctrination, I'll give you that. But it turns out that deep down, even the dreaded 'White Death' doesn't support your methods of slaughtering innocents wholesale. Would you imagine that? Funny how our crimes come back to bite us, isn't it?"

For a few moments then, silence persisted in the room. The two just stared at each other, the intensity between them almost palpable. Finally, Adriana let up her gaze, and sighed loudly. "Why are you doing this, Nicole?" she asked, no fear evident in her voice, only disappointment. "Money? Power? These are all things you would have in due time. You were soon to become my successor..."

Nicole felt a twinge of bitterness in her gut as she spoke. Her, Adriana's successor. Ridiculous. "I'll be brief. You remember the Mist Tribe, yes? Tell me, why did you order their destruction? What could they have possibly done to deserve the hell you unleased upon them?" It felt strange yet cathartic mentioning the Mist Tribe, after so many years of hiding her connection. It was almost like the return of a forgotten friend.

Several moments passed with no answer. Adriana just sat in her chair, looking at Nicole drolly as if she were a child blathering some nonsense or the other. Silence owned the room. "Answer me!" Nicole roared, retightening her grip of the pistol, further extending the barrel at Adriana dangerously.

With an annoyed sigh, the older woman placed her elbow against her chair's armrest and slumped against it, bored. "They made me angry..." The simplicity of Adriana's response caught Nicole unawares, her mouth slowly sliding open in uncertainty. Satisfied with the reaction, Adriana continued, "At first all I wanted was to trade peacefully with the Mist Tribe; they cultivated an extremely rare moss you see... Phantom Dust, as it's known on the market; it's an expensive hallucinogen, and oh so very profitable. I was willing to give them more crowns than they would have ever seen in their miserable lives for the stuff, yet they doggedly refused me. They said it was 'sacred', that they needed it for as ritual sacrifice to appease one of their half-baked imaginary Boggie Men gods, pheh. I spent an entire day traveling there for that moss, so after some time, I just repossessed what was owed to me with interest... I suppose there was some collateral damage..."

"Collateral Damage?" Nicole's rage was hot as white flames, and she could barely withhold herself from pulling the trigger right then and there. She was on the brink of explosion, yet she fought desperately to keep her composer, her hatred a bloody-thirsty hound restrained by but a threadbare rope. "Do you even feel the slightest bit of remorse for the people you brutalized, murdered and trafficked like livestock?"

Adriana folded her bangs back behind her ear, lighting a cigarette and inhaled lightly. She let out a delicate puff of smoke, her expression uncaring and absentminded. "Not really... it's not as though the world will really miss a few uncivilized spear-chuckers, anyway. Those people had less intellect than their feral counterparts."

Nicole's grip around her pistol tightened until her knuckles were white, her hand shaking in a fit of rage. A single dry scoff of discuss escaped her mouth. "I won't even dignify this by calling it revenge. No, this is about ending a viscous beast that should have been put down years ago..."

Nicole spoke her words with pure hatred, one that had been festering and raging in the core of her being for four years, yet Adriana remained undaunted. In fact, for the first time since their meeting, Adriana smiled. Her smile was so very beautiful, yet so very rotten. "You speak with such passion Nicole. A shame we're at odds with each other; I could have made good use of that hatred. Though, if one of us must die here, I suppose at least you did pick a fitting room... The five past Alarices have their portraits hanging here in this room of memorial. They were most powerful women who have ever existed, second to not even the queen of Lehsunia..." Adriana waved her gloved hand, exemplifying the portraits of the five women of great power. All five were beautiful. All five were human. As Nicole glanced at them, it was as if their eyes were all staring at her, watching, judging...

"Do you know how I won over the previous Alarice's affection, Nicole? Why she made me her successor? I'll tell you: It was with my talent with steel. 'Hurricane-Blade Adriana', that's what they used to call me, so impressed were the rabble with my reflexes and swordsmanship. I was barely in my second decade when it was whispered that I the finest blade in all of Lehsunia. And it wasn't much longer until I took the title 'Alarice,' either... And yet here you are, thinking you can kill me with a mere pistol. Oh Nicole, you're so very smart, and yet so very foolish..." Adriana took in another drag of her cigarette, only this one was deep and exaggerated... "I'll snatch the bullet out of the air and slit your throat with my nails. It'll be an absolute waste, but... I..." Suddenly, Adriana looked confused. The speed of her words had tapered and become less clear. Her breathing irregular and labored. She brought her left hand up to her forehead, bewildered.

I win...

"What's the matter, Alarice? Feeling a bit numb? Nauseous, perhaps? Don't worry, that's just the Violet Oosirum I laced your cigarettes with."

For the first time in her life, Nicole saw fear in Adriana. Her voice trembled slightly. "How did you...?"

"A bit late to be sweating the details now, isn't it? Suffice it to say, getting my hands on some cost me a small fortune, but supposedly there's not a single more crippling poison out there. Oh don't worry, you shouldn't start feeling the hellish pain until another five minutes or so, but it's safe to say that right now your legendary reflexes aren't any greater than that of a besodden fool's..." It felt so sweet to say those words; Nicole had savored every one of them.

"Hellish... pain?" Adriana repeated, the cigarette slipping from her fingers and onto the hardwood floor. It seemed more a statement than a question.

There was only one move left for Nicole to make, but she still had a few more fleeting moments of victory to savor. "I'm sure your familiar, but let me spell it out for you in case you've forgotten. Death by Violet Oosirum can take anywhere from several hours to several days. It's supposed to be the most painful death imaginable: it slowly destroys one's grey matter, causing crippling insanity, loss of control of bodily functions, eventual paralysis, and one hell of a migraine, though I haven't been able to see any of this firsthand. Well, not till today, anyway." Nicole placed her pistol back in its holder; she wouldn't need it anymore. Taking her sweet time, she walked to Adriana's side and crouched down. The staggered woman looked at her, frightful of what was to come next, her once confident face now nonplussed, filled with layers of uncertainty.

"I figured there was little point in trying to torture you by conventional means... but the thought of one's mind and prided intellect addling as they screams and writhe helplessly in pain, well, that might just frighten even you."

Nicole could see the great amount of effort it took for Adriana to speak. "You plan to torture me?"

"Believe me, there's little more I desire than to watch you scream as I bleed you dry, but that's not what's important. Before you die, there's something I need you to do for me."

Nicole pulled out a parchment from inside her armor, and slapped it down on the desk. She then took one of the many pens out of the nearby holder and placed it inside Adirana's hand, wrapping the weakened woman's fingers around it. "Sign this will, and I'll give you a swift, painless death: one bullet right between the eyes. And that's far more than a monster like you deserves, believe me. Don't sign it, and I'll find some dark cellar for you to shit and piss yourself filthy as you die like the pathetic scum you are. Choose as you like; I suppose it won't be too difficult to forge your signature anyway..." For a while, the lost look of despair persisted on Adriana's person. Her breathing rang of despair and her sweat of desperation.

And then she laughed.

The laughs were labored and frantic, those of a dying animal in its last moments, but they were joyous laughs, ones of pleasure. It stirred the anger in Nicole's blood. "Do you find your own death that amusing?"

In an incredible show of will, Adriana sucked in a big breath of air and spoke with mustered lucidity, though her brow was wet with sweat. She began to write her name on the parchment, though she looked at Nicole as she did so, her eyes wide open with strain. "My dear, sweet Nicole... I'm so proud of you. I never would have imagined you would turn so formidable and ruthless. You remind me of myself when I was your age. Why, I feel almost like a mother, proud of her daughter's newfound womanhood."

"I am nothing like you." Alarice's words dripped with spite and venom. She believed in those words more than anything. "I'm doing this to you because you're a monster who slaughters hundreds of innocents on a whim because they hurt your fragile ego. But I can't stop with just you, oh no. I'm going to crush every last demon like you, with your very own resources, until there's not a single one left to be a stain on this world."

"Why Nicole..." Adriana purred as she messily wrote the last letter of her name on the faded parchment. She smiled so earnestly, so proudly. "Do that, and you'll be the only demon left."

And that was when Nicole had killed Adriana. Only in the vision, she didn't draw her pistol, and the bullet never came. Instead, she found herself back outside, starting at the same two static mannequins that she had been earlier.

The phantom Adriana was there standing beside Nicole as she had been before the layered dream began. With crossed arms she faced Nicole, scolding her, judging her just as the portraits had.

"Why did you show me this?" Nicole could hardly speak. She felt weak, forlorn...

Never had she felt so inadequate, so meager, as she did when Adriana spoke next. "Because your forgetfulness has made you grow soft and weak... You had a passion once, a fire deep inside you that burned hotter than hell itself. I saw such inside you when you first joined me up until the day I died by your hands, but now, as I stare into your eyes, I see nothing but defeat. A miserable girl begets a miserable sight."

"No... you're wrong..."

"Before me I see a pathetic, sniveling child who isn't worthy to wipe the shit from the filthiest of stables, a girl who wallows in her sorrow and lets her failures control her. And you dare call yourself Alarice? You, who would die like a trampled flower to some nameless mercenary? Written off as less than worthless in the annals of time that you should be writing?!"

As Adriana spoke, the world was consumed by fire. Flames appeared out of nowhere and dissolving everything until nothing but a hot field of endless flames remained. From the flames, new apparitions were born: the five Alarices before Adriana. They walked until they circled her, their expressions exactly as they were in their portraits.

Nicole fell to her knees. She looked up at her master, scared and powerless as a lamb, she could do nothing but listen.

"Six Generations of Alarice rest inside of you now, and you alone carry our memories." Adriana's voice now roared with command and regality. It wasn't her voice alone, Nicole knew, it was the voice of the six Alarices speaking in unison: the voice of a god. "We are Alarice: the queen of a new era, the conqueror of worlds, the Goddess of life and death. And you would just throw that all away, Seventh?"

Sixth disappeared, and was replaced by First. Four more times this happened; one would vanish, speak, and be replaced by another. They shared the same voice.

"Deep inside your heart there's a burning desire you can't extinguish."

"Channel the smoldering embers until they become a raging inferno."

"You shall become the one to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies."

"As your blazing sword will slay your then without remorse."

"And you will make a spectacle worthy for God himself."

Finally, the being in front of her morphed into the form of Sixth. Her once hazel eyes were now burning with hell. In her hand, lay the very same gun that Seventh had slain her with. Sixth gave Seventh the pistol, placing it in her hand, wrapping her fingers around the grip in a terribly familiar fashion.

"This is the moment for war."

*

Alarice gasped, her upper body springing upward in her bed in sudden energy. Her skin was slick with sweat, her breathing heavy. For a few brief moments she lost her sense of self, staring blankly at the dark, unfamiliar room around her. Eventually remembering who and where she was, she looked to her side; Inigo was there, naked under the sheets and agitated by her movement, but still asleep. Alarice sighed in relief, thankful that she hadn't woken the poor bat up. He really treasured his sleep...

Her bandaged wound to her side ached fiercely as she reclined back onto the tiny bed that was barely wide enough to support the both of them. Under the warm embrace of the covers once more, she nestled up to Inigo's chest, listening to his breathing.

"I don't know what you see in me Inny... I'm so horrible to you. By keeping you close, wanting to protect you, I've only put you in danger. I've been an arrogant fool to not have seen that until now. I'll never let you suffer for my sake again, Inny..

But she knew that was a lie: Inigo was involved. They were all involved, Sada, Weisen even the scholars. It mattered not a lick that some of those paws were clean; everyone was stained and splattered red with blood, marked for death by blade.

War was coming.