Rob X Punzel ~ Forty-Five!

“While I admire your… tenacity, I’m going to break you. Bring you an inch from death. Then I will extend my hand once more, drenched in your blood, and make you a far different offer. One you will weep tears of joy to receive, as it means the pain will end. If you survive, it’ll be because you’ve learned your lesson and view me as the god-queen I am.”

Brutehilda stepped forward, tossing her shoulders back as she flexed in preparation of a proper beatdown. “You’ll never again spit on my generosity. No one will. It seems it’s been too long since I’ve killed a monkey to warn the circus.”

“Hold!” the king called out. Perhaps he couldn't stop the fight, but he could give the contender a fighting chance. “She's already wounded. You wouldn't want someone to claim you only won because someone else had done the work for you?”

“Guard!” the queen bellowed at the royal guard who stiffened to stand at attention. “Go get a healing tonic. A good one, which will offer regeneration over time after the initial burst of healing. Wouldn't want her to die without realizing her failure.”

It took nearly half an hour for the guard to return, yet when he did, the tension in the room hadn't receded by an iota. Silently, the man handed the potion over, and Goldie looked through it to read the label before uncorking and swallowing it down. 

Heat built up in her side, and she started to cough as the magical potency of the potion began forcing her slowly fluid-filling lungs to clear out. Each wracking cough hurt slightly less as her bones set themselves and knit back together. Once the hard objects were whole once more, the bruised and damaged tissue quickly followed.

The queen waited patiently until Goldie had seemingly fully recovered. “Get your weapons out when you’re ready. You good? Fully healed?”

“Yes.” Goldie announced in a louder voice than she’d been able to manage during the entire process. The ex-thief settled into a stance, clicking her battle scissors together to form the oversized shears—preparing to go all-out from the very start of the fight to survive long enough to win her prize.

“Good.” Without any further warning, Brutehilda launched forward at a shocking speed. Her fist drove down like a meteor, landing squarely on the top of Goldie’s head and slamming her to, then through, the stone floor.

The young woman barely had time to register the impact before she was falling through open air, the slums replica of the fifth floor quickly filling her vision. Goldie landed on top of one of the buildings, bursting right through the rotten roof before finally coming to a stop at ground level. Shards of stone, dust, and rubble rained down around her as she simply lay there for a long moment, staring up through the devastation and trying to suck in a breath. 

Gritting her teeth, Goldie forced herself to her feet, slapping her hair in appreciation for absorbing each of the impacts she’d just been subjugated to. Spitting a thin stream of blood to the side, the prospective princess realized that perhaps her hair hadn't been able to absorb all of the damage. Even so, the healing potion the queen had granted her was already fixing whatever injuries she had taken. 

“Did that kill you? If it didn't, color me impressed!” Brutehilda's form was framed by the jagged edges of the hole she’d created by driving Goldie through the floor. When no response came, her voice turned mocking. “I'll give you ten seconds to show me you're alive, or I'm declaring my victory. Ten-”

Goldie stared up at the hole in the sky, a rip through the now-wobbling spatially expanded space which she was fairly certain was unstable when it started out. Now it looked like it was on the verge of collapsing and imploding everyone caught within.

Seeing the queen’s silhouette through the haze, every one of the thief’s instincts were telling her that she should find a dark corner to hide in until the danger had passed, but her newfound resolve forced her to kick open the door of the building she had fallen into and raise her weapons. “I'm perfectly fine! Maybe try something more than a love tap next time.”

“Oh, ho-ho-hoo.” The queen’s dark chuckle rolled through the open air, sending shivers down Goldie's spine. “I love it. Let's see if you can be more than the best punching bag I've found in a decade.”

Raising her massive arms and clapping her hands together, the brute slammed her fists down on the ground, blasting the hole in the ‘sky’ open wide enough that she could fit through it. With no hesitation, she dropped through the open air, landing on the cobblestone hard enough to shatter the mortar and turn the street into a gravel road. 

Dust swirled into the air, only to be blasted to the side as the queen pumped her arms, sprinting at Goldie as though she were going to bring her to the ground in a full-body tackle. Knowing better than to hold still, the young woman rushed into the maze of the slum's alleyways, hoping it would buy her some time. 

It didn't. 

The queen simply bulldozed directly through the buildings, leading with a fist if the obstacles were made of stone, otherwise allowing her face to do the work. As the huge combatant burst through yet another wall, Goldie dropped down on her, pressing her finger against the rune on her shears correlating to fire.

Her weapon burst into flame just as the tip plunged into the back of the queen's neck… and stopped dead. Goldie blanched as the queen laughed, swinging around and backhanding her through a boarded-up window. “You think I failed to temper the inside of my body?”

“No…” Goldie groaned as she got to her feet. “I just didn't know that was possible.”

“You really are from the slums!” Brutehilda contemptuously spat, rushing forward and bursting through the thin barrier between them. “You're soft, you're weak, nowhere near what’s needed for this kingdom! You think the king figured out the right way to do things without my firm hand guiding him?”

She punctuated her sentences with punches, sending Goldie dozens of yards with each strike, even with her hair absorbing the force of the blow. Rolling to her feet yet again, the young woman found herself dizzy from the constant flipping and tumbling she’d been subjected to. “Stop… stop punch-uating what you say.”

“Not you too! I get enough of that foul wordplay from the Hedge Witch; I don't need it in my domain.” Brutehilda slowed down slightly, as though having a sudden understanding. “You know… the head of my coven would probably love to know about this mysterious, endless source of alchemy components. I could trade that for… oh, for so much. I have a mere kingdom, and she has a dynastic empire under her thumb. She's figured out the Brew of Immortality, but one dose can only last us so long. The ingredients are rare… yes. Now I know what to do with you when we are done here.”

Taking another step forward, the queen let out a sudden yelp, spinning around and slapping at the flames racing along the back of her shirt and hair. Goldie rushed forward, determined to use the distraction to her benefit. Her shears flashed out, Akashic Interface empowering the increased force rune as she landed her first true strike of the battle. Her blade sank into the queen's left calf, deep enough that she struck bone. Just before her momentum ran out, Goldie spun back and away, yanking out her weapon just as a massive fist whizzed through the air.

“You did not just stab me.”

“This is a fight. You started it.” Goldie shrugged as a deep rumbling emanated from the queen’s chest, like the bellows of a forge racing to increase the temperature enough to melt the hardest of metals. “Don't blame me if you get hurt. You can always surrender-”

The queen dipped, putting her weight on her uninjured leg, shifting her foot so that her toes were pointed at Goldie. Then she sucked in a sharp breath, drew her fist back, and punched. One moment, she was nearly five yards away. In the next, she was putting her full force into a strike landing on Goldie's face. Or, more accurately, her strike made impact on the dense hairball which had poofed up around the young woman in the fraction of a second before the queen's attack had landed.

Goldie had the sensation of movement and could hear terrible crashing sounds all around her, but she could only focus on the black and green energy that had been clinging to the queen's fist as she swung. She let out a wail of pain as it ate into her flesh, melting the surface of her skin and sinking through the thin layers of her flesh. It was clear the malevolent cascade wouldn't be content until it had eroded her cheekbones. 

Minimal-rank corrupted energy immunity gained! 

Minimal-rank cursed energy immunity gained!

Before it could destroy her further, a single strand of hair lanced through the growing wound, parting the melting flesh and scooping it out. Her face ached, but concerningly enough, there wasn’t nearly as much pain as Goldie expected. “How deep did that damage go before it was stopped?”

Her eyes turned to her hair as she finally tumbled to a stop, horrified to see large clumps curling up and falling away as the dark magic destroyed it. The pain turned to fury, and she lunged to her feet—only to freeze in shock at the absolute devastation in a straight line between herself and the queen…

…who was already sprinting at her, the promise of death clear in her eyes. 

Then she was pulling back for another punch, and Goldie dove out of the way as her attack absolutely cratered the floor. 

“Come here, you stubborn little thing. Time for you to take your lumps and learn your lesson!”

Instead of trying to flee, Goldie decided it was time to put aside her reservations. She flung herself at the queen, her hair spreading out in a net that wrapped around the woman as she whispered under her breath, “Elemental infusion of slashing!” 

The last time she had to imbue her hair with the Perfect version slashing, Goldie had destroyed a street and toppled a building—all in only two and a half seconds. She was almost terrified to see what nearly half a minute of imbuement would yield. 

A shudder rippled through her hair, each strand vibrating with a wild energy as the light around them shifted from a gentle gold-red to metallic silver. A dense hum filled the now-shining space, as if ten million fireflies were lighting up the world. Then Goldie lost her balance and fell as the air was sliced into endless turbulence and thrummed against her.

For a full thirty feet in every direction, her hair swung around like living razors, cutting through the rubble, the queen's skin, and the stone floor itself. The world seemed to fracture as primordial slashing damage drawn from the most primal aspects of creation itself were unleashed into the world. Nearly everything touched by her hair was dissected with impossible precision—each cut no thicker than the width of a hair, the edges so sharp and clean that they reflected light like mirrors. Even the wind itself split, a misty haze filling Goldie's vision as humidity was separated from the air. 

Once more she was falling, the ground below her reduced to shards, then splinters, then dust as she fell through the fragments. The moment stretched as the wind whistled past her, her waving hair slowing her descent thanks to its maximally extended volume. As the twenty-fifth second of imbuement ended, her hair fell around her, exhausted, as the modifier went on cooldown.

Glancing around, she realized that she hadn’t landed on the fourth floor as expected—she was on the third. “I cut straight through two sections of the tower?”

“Sure did.” Brutehilda's voice was tinged with pain, but Goldie's heart clenched at the mere fact that the Witch was still alive in the first place. A mound of rubble shifted as the enormous woman got to her feet unsteadily, blood pouring from every inch of her skin. “Well, at the very least, I can no longer claim you don't have a usable combat skill. You held that pretty close to your chest, huh? If you would’ve shown that to me before you accepted my dual, I wouldn't have to beat on you like I'm still going to.” 

The queen staggered, and Goldie looked on with renewed hope as the woman bent over. But instead of collapsing, she reached down and grabbed a chunk of stone. After crushing it in her palm, she ground it into dirt with her other hand before coating her wounds with it—sealing every slice she touched. “There we go. Rubbing some dirt in it is always the fastest way to stop the bleeding. Anyway, as I was saying-” 

A barrage of balled fists cloaked in greenish-black crackling energy burned through the air toward Goldie as the queen vented her fury over taking an injury. Though she ducked and weaved, the young woman couldn't avoid everything, and each time an attack connected, her hair shivered and failed under the dark magic, blackening and crumbling away. Whenever the energy washed over her, excruciating pain soon followed. 

“I'm going to flay you, girlie!” A cackle followed on the heels of the queen’s announcement. “All out of tricks already? That's fine! Just stay-”

A double-handed overhead strike sent Goldie through the mirrored floor, crashing into the darkened hills of the second floor, only for the queen to drop on top of her and smash her straight through the stone once more.

Minimal → Basic-rank corrupted energy immunity gained! 

Minimal → Basic-rank cursed energy immunity gained!

Goldie had never seen her hair gain immunities this quickly or rank up so fast. She could only assume it was because of the unutterable flood of power it was contending with at this moment. For the first time in years, her hair only reached to her mid-lower back, and she desperately lashed out with her shears as the queen drew closer, the beasts and monsters filling the first floor sprinting as far away from the cackling Witch as possible.

Clatter.

Both of them paused at the unexpected sound, as a small brass ball etched with intricate designs bounced off the ground. More of Goldie's hair burned away, and a small, wooden whistle broke in half as it landed. A stream of glimmering baubles fell out of Goldie's hair as the volume of it became too little to contain what it had stored away over the years. Glass marbles she recognized as having gone missing from Sorin's Curio Shop sprayed out, as did hundreds of mirror fragments her hair had collected in the tower.

A huge burst of dried flower petals filled the air, a year’s worth of stolen foliage making a reappearance as though someone were tossing confetti in the air. Next came a string of glowing beads, likely from the vault Goldie head robbed. Rings, pendants, a treasure trove of copper and silver coins followed. Then came a rusted lantern, a polished steel helmet, and a small bronze buckler. The thief could only stare at the oddities and shake her head. “Seriously, hair? You little klepto! Where… no, we have other things to worry about right now.”

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, looks like you let your hair down.” Brutehilda laughed at her own joke as she slowly closed in on her target, scattering coins and glass baubles with each step. “Yes, it sure looks that way, doesn't it? Anything else? Or is that all you have to offer?”

A heavy metal anvil, coated in glowing runes, dropped to the ground, barely missing Goldie's feet. The queen lifted half of her caterpillar-like monobrow in amusement as a wash of shining trinkets and trash burst into the world.

Goldie was breathing heavily, bleeding from dozens of locations where her skin had melted away. As far as she could tell, the only reason she was still alive was that the open wounds had been mostly cauterized, even as they were inflicted. In comparison, the queen had seemingly fully recovered from the most potent attack she could possibly generate. Even so, she rushed forward, shears at the ready, only for her opponent to casually slap them away, breaking Goldie's left wrist in the process.

Seeing the young woman cry out, the queen rolled her eyes in annoyance, stepped forward, and wrapped her enormous, meaty fists around what little hair remained on her opponent’s head. Then she turned and started walking toward the center of the room, dragging Goldie along behind her. “Let's finish this in front of them, shall we? It certainly would be a shame for them not to learn their lesson. Two birds, one stone. You know what the trick is? Small birds, big rock. Splat.”

Lifting her free hand to shoulder-level, the monarch glanced contemptuously at her unwilling burden. “Try not to die from this.”

A dark miasma wrapped around the clenched hand, and her arm shot down to drive a single titanic punch into the base of the tower, causing the floor to ripple as though it were made of water. The force of the hit sent the duo rocketing upward, propelled by the thrust of the impact. Dragged along by her hair, Goldie could only thank her lucky stars that her neck muscles had been empowered by the system, allowing her to endure the travel without having her head torn from her shoulders.

Wham. A second punch followed the first, and a heartbeat later, the queen’s hand shot up to brace against the ceiling of the sixth floor of the tower, pushing off of it and sending them to the floor. Goldie landed hard, whimpering in pain as she felt parts of herself bend in ways they weren’t meant to bend, bones breaking from the callous impact.

Leaning close to her ear, the queen's rank breath rolled over Goldie's face as she quietly whispered, “You should’ve taken the offer when you had the chance, Rapunzel. Now you're just another one of my broken toys.”