??? ??? ??? [Perspective Switch: Skadi]

  What had been Skadi was now something other, something radiant and pitiless. Her wings of pink starlight stretched wider, halo burning above her head like a judge's brand. The threat would cease to exist.

  That Hydra rose from its crater, twin heads snapping in opposite directions. Its presence remained a blanket of suffocation, the promise of rot and despair. Yet Skadi did not flinch.

  She did not laugh. She did not beam. She simply looked at them. And in that gaze was an intent so sharp, so absolute, that even monsters recoiled.

  The Hydra hissed first, the Vice head twisting to sneer, "Pretender of light—"

  The rest of its words drowned beneath impact.

  Skadi had moved. A [Starlight Dash] so fast, as though space itself had bent to let her pass. Her paw was already pressed into Hydra-Vic's neck, light searing through its scales. Flesh cracked beneath her touch while venom boiled into vapor as her radiance tore it open.

  Her mind was cold clarity. The joy she once carried had become justification. If light erased evil, then she was right to erase this. If she burned away the venom, she was saving Rox. If she shattered these beasts, she was preserving life. Her delusion whispered that this was kindness… when in truth, no kindness lingered.

  Hydra-Vic shrieked, both heads vomiting a flood of venom that painted the air into a storm of acid rain. The crowd screamed as the barrier warped and buckled. But Skadi did not falter. She strode forward into the torrent, with her light vanquishing the hazardous mist. The venom dissolved before reaching her, purified in the radiance.

  She answered next with her own hymn: not a shout, not a song, but a vibration of the soul. Her halo unleashed lances of pink-white brilliance that stabbed through the storm and pinned the Hydra against the arena walls.

  Vice roared. Vicious snapped. Their fury writhed in stereo: "Damn you! You cannot purge us—"

  Their words were lies to her ears. Villains always said they would not break. But all evil broke under dawn.

  Skadi pressed her paws together, the halo shifting into an orbit, transforming into a blazing wheel of judgment. She prepared to bring it down. To end them utterly.

  But somewhere, far behind that frost, a voice still tried to whisper: Smile. Play. Don't hurt too much.

  Her chest ached with the cold, merciless certainty of it. But the angel that was Skadi no longer listened. The Hydra refused to bow. The Vice head flared its eyes open wide, pupils blazing into baleful suns.

  A basilisk's gaze. Venomous magic born to petrify will and body alike lashed outward in a beam of sickly red. But Skadi did not falter. She did not blink against the petrifying glare; her luminance flared greater, and the basilisk's curse shattered like brittle glass.

  Meanwhile, the Vicious head hissed and exhaled ablack steam. The hazardous aura itself weaponized, crawling across the arena floor like aliving smog cloud.

  Where it touched, stone and warded materials bubbled. Even decaying the arena light. The acid steam consumed everything, yet Skadi's wings cut through it with searing light that split the miasma apart. That light resumed its trajectory, carving straight through Vice's head and ending his spew of darkness. However, from his wound-slick head, a new one regenerated. It lunged, and she welcomed it.

  Her paws wove sigils in the air, and the first of them appeared: brilliant spheres of starlight, orbiting her body in perfect harmony. One became three. Three became seven. They spun and sang in silence, then streaked outward in radiant bombardment.

  [Celestial MereSphere], a rain of miniature stars that struck with a comet's force. Each impact tore a head apart, bursting them into flame, and left craters blazing with light. Hydra-Vic roared, bodies thrashing, as the onslaught pressed harder. Yet the angel was not content. The spheres replenished themselves as quickly as they fell, her wrath infinite. And then she lifted her paw to the sky.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Above the arena, the stars bent. Shapes congealed in the void where there should have been ceiling; comet and planetary forms, with tails of fire trailing in orbit around her halo.

  Her alien calm did not break. She began chanting her incantation. "This was the way. Villainy multiply, so stars must burn brighter. If they birth more heads, then she would birth more heavens."

  She let them fall.

  The comets rained down, each a catastrophe of cosmic weight. Hydra-Vic's coils snapped under the pressure, heads shrieked and were obliterated, their hazard aura screaming in protest against something it could not corrupt.

  Still, the fused monster persisted. Venom geysers erupted, basilisk beams swept like scythes, hydra heads regenerated as quickly as they were severed. Their hatred refused to die.

  But Skadi had no hesitation. The more they grew, the more she burned. The further they pushed, the further she strayed from the creature she once was. What fought in the arena was no longer a playful critter with bright smiles.

  What stood against Hydra-Vic was an alien seraph of judgment, raining stars upon a devil.

  She descended, poised to end their tyrannous presence. Hydra-Vic writhed beneath the storm of blows that followed. Skadi's fists fell like comets, each strike blazing with divine fury, each impact shattering scale, bone, and spirit alike. The ground trembled under the angel's judgment.

  Vice's roars turned to gurgles, Vicious's laughter broke into strangled screams, but Skadi did not stop. She could not stop.

  Her wings burned brighter, her halo seared against the poisoned air. The flurry of light did not feel like choice. It was law, it was inevitability. Vice and Vicious would be erased.

  But then—

  "Skadi, stop!"

  The voice cut through the fury. Rox's scream wavered, cracked, but carried more strength than all the crowd combined. Tears streaked down her face as she stumbled forward, forcing her legs to move despite the venom still gnawing at her body.

  "Skadi, you've already won! Please, please, don't lose yourself to this!"

  Skadi's fists did not falter. Light exploded again, carving the hydra deeper into the stone. Vice coughed blood and venom in equal measure, Vicious hissed curses. The angel's eyes were hollow, fixed on judgment alone.

  Rox sobbed. "If you kill them, you'll be disqualified! This isn't you! This isn't… my Skaditty!"

  She threw herself against Skadi's back. Her arms wrapped tight around the angel's trembling frame. She buried her face into Skadi's fur, sobbing freely, her tears soaking the sparkle-lit coat.

  "Please come back. I don't want to lose you to this."

  For a moment, nothing changed. Skadi readied her head-limb fist for another strike. Vice and Vicious lay battered beneath her, the hydra's breaths ragged but alive. The next blow would be the last.

  Then she felt the warmth. Tears seeping into her fur. A heartbeat pressed against her back. Arms that did not strike or judge, but only held. Rox's sobs reverberated against her. Skadi shuddered.

  The pitiless light in her eyes cracked as her ears twitched back toward the sound of Rox's voice.

  Her comet-paw retracted toward her. Her breaths came fast and uneven as tremors ran through her chest. They were descending. Her power dwindling. Finally, she collapsed to her knees, her tears mingling with Rox's. The angel was gone.

  Skadi… Skaditty… remained.

  "By sheer brilliance! The victors of the third match are… Skadi and Rox!"