As the Aardwolf previously known as The Hyena watched the spinning blades fly at her, a simple thought passed through her mind.
"He's fast."
Quickly stepping to the side, Lulu avoided the two blades before she began circling the Cat, her eyes locked onto him as she ran in a clockwise direction towards him, her arm whipping out to swing one of her hooks at the Argonaut.
Castor lazily watched the giant fishhook swing at him before another chakram shot from his paws, hitting the hook and knocking it off course before ricocheting into the ground.
Lulu ducked over her returning hook, allowing the roped weapon to swing above her before letting it fly back at the cat like a deadly lasso.
Castor blinked tiredly before he kicked the ground behind him, quickly gaining momentum as he dashed beneath the rope and grabbed his chakram from the ground, continuing to run towards where Lulu previously stood before spinning back around to keep his eyes on her, but not before throwing his chakram at the ground behind him, hearing it ricochet against the previous two that he threw at Lulu. With a lazy smirk, Castor raised a paw, catching the returning chakram before swinging his tail and catching the other two.
"Show off..." Lulu snarled as she swung her second fishhook into the ground, swiftly halting her momentum as she used it as a pendulum to swing back in the Cat's direction, her muscles tensing as she pulled the hook from the ground, sending it flying into the air above her before slamming it down like a flail on the ground between her and Castor, causing a cloud of dust to obscure the area.
Taking a look around her, Lulu snarled angrily as she spotted the path she planned to use to escape now blocked, a dried log having fallen over the path. Looking for a different escape route, Lulu spotted a crevice between the ground and a cliff to her right, large enough for her to slide into.
With a skeleton of a plan formed in her mind, Lulu began to rush towards the crevice, only for her eyes to widen as the cloud of dust that acted as a temporary smokescreen was pushed aside by a large bladed wheel rolling towards her.
Lulu jumped ahead, quickly avoiding the large wheel before quickly raising her hooks as another pair of chakram shot out from the dust cloud.
"Dammit!" She yelled as she swatted away the first blade with the blunt side of her hooks, only to miss the second blade, feeling its sharp edge cut at her bicep.
She didn't care about the pain; the cut wasn't debilitating, and she doubted it would leave anything more than a simple scar. Instead, Lulu was furious at the simple fact that this cut represented.
Castor took first blood.
"Dammit!" She screamed, swinging her left fishhook into the air before she began spinning it above her head, waiting for her opponent to show himself.
Spotting a hint of movement from the corner of her eye, Lulu let out a ferocious bark before swinging her hook at the moving object, smiling sharply as she watched her hook grab hold of a chakram mid-flight before pulling it back towards her.
As she pulled back the rope holding the hook, she felt her eyes widen and her hair stand on end as a fourth blade burst from the clearing dust cloud, this time not flying by, but held in the paws of a Cat.
With a quick correction from her paws, Lulu changed the trajectory of her hook to swing at the attacking cat, only to watch with dumbfounded awe as Castor ducked beneath her swinging hook before slashing up at her weapon with his chakram, the sharp disc cutting through the rope holding her hook.
"Shit!" Lulu shouted as she let go of the rope, moving her free hand to hold onto the second hook before rushing towards the cat, both hands holding tight to the hook, the rope still connected, lying on the dusty ground like a snake.
Castor picked up his chakram from the discarded fishhook, holding it in his free hand before he quickly threw it at the approaching Aardwolf as he dashed to his left, circling the Ex-Bandit, his eyes flicking between his opponent and his other weapons.
Lulu spared no time in dashing towards the crevice the moment Castor was no longer actively attacking her, sliding on her knees the moment she heard the sound of shearing wind as she quickly avoided another chakram that flew where her head previously was, biting her inner cheek in order to ignore the pain of her knees scraping on the rough desert ground.
Castor picked up his discarded blades before spinning back to watch Lulu slide into a crevice between the nearby cliff and the floor beneath it, disappearing into the darkness. For a brief second, Castor pondered if he should run back and get the other Argonauts, knowing that Lulu couldn't run far with how tired she was and how dark her surroundings were. But he shook his head; there was little reason to make the chase more complicated than it needed to be. He already had her cornered and bleeding, and he highly doubted the crevice she slid into led anywhere.
Castor lazily picked up the large saw-toothed wheel, the colossal Chakram that would look much better as an ornamental piece floating behind a far eastern warrior deity, and began to spin. Castor held the large wheel firmly, like a vicious dance partner in the most dangerous ballet there was, his arms beginning to shake as the heavy weapon threatened to fly from his paws, gaining more and more momentum as the dance became more and more dangerous.
One misstep could spell his death.
And so Castor let his partner fly, watching the metaphorical ballerina twirl in the sky like a shooting star made of heavy metal and sharp blades, before it oh so elegantly landed on the dancefloor that was the cold desert floor.
And it did what any good wheel did.
It rolled.
Castor quickly ran after the bladed wheel, watching with sharp eyes as it rolled into the crevice his ex-teammate slid into, leaving a grooved path in the ground from where its bladed teeth sank into the floor, cutting it like it was the world's largest cutting board. Castor quickly threw two chakram into the crevice following the wheel before flicking his last two blades into his paws, holding them at the ready as he too slid into the crevice.
Castor's eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of moonlight as he looked at the interior of the crevice, a small cavern roughly seven meters wide and eleven meters long, with the rocky ceiling standing two meters above the entrance, and six meters above the far end of the cave.
He watched the two chakrams he threw spin against the walls of the cave, rolling along like they were wheels on a road.
He watched the bladed wheel impact the far end of the cave, climbing up the sloping edge of the cavern before it began to spin back towards him.
He watched as-
Castor felt the air leave his lungs as a leg shot up from beneath him, kicking him in the chest and lifting him off the ground.
"How did she-?!" Castor tried asking himself as he looked down, watching Lulu, who was seemingly lying on the floor, flip herself back into her feet and kick him in the chest once again. It was then that he realized what happened.
The light from the moon outside lights up only a small portion of the crevice. From where you enter the cave and let your eyes adjust to the darkness, the dim moonlight lights up a tiny portion near the entrance of the cave.
However, because of the sloping nature of the cavern and the moon's position in the sky outside, this leaves a two-meter gap on the ground that is neither lit by the moon nor noticed by the position of the crevice's entrance.
It was the cavernous version of hiding behind an open door to avoid being seen.
"EAT SHIT!" Lulu screamed as she swung her fishhook at the Cat, watching as it cut a painful line across his arm as he raised it to block. Her ears stung as Castor's pained scream echoed in the cave, but she pushed through the discomfort and attacked again, swinging her hook back, only to miss as the Argonaut ducked low to the ground, his teeth bared as he winced in pain, dropping the chakram in his injured arm as he swung at her legs with his second chakram.
Lulu took a step back, avoiding the bladed wheel from cutting her right leg, only to get slashed on the top of her left paw, almost losing a pair of toes if she didn't pull back in the last moment.
She counted herself lucky that the Cat's weapons were sharp and clean, her eyes looking at the painful injury she left in his arm, noting to herself that if he managed to survive, he'd need stitches to even attempt to stop the bleeding.
It was only because of she was looking at his injury that she noticed his face twist into a grin, as if victorious. Giving her all the information she needed to quickly turn around and bat away the pair of chakram that ricocheted off the walls of the cavern and nearly cut her head off.
And it was only because she batted the chakram away with her remaining hook that she was in position to hold it up as the large bladed wheel spun at her, the bladed teeth of the wheel snatching the hook out of her paws and cutting a painful gash into her right palm, the force of wheel taking the hook from her hand throwing her to the side, cutting another gruesome line into her abdomen, before spinning out of control and dropping down to its side, mere centimeters from Castor.
Lulu screamed in pain, her left foot was bleeding heavily, her right bicep and palm were also bleeding, and her abdomen was in worse pain than anything she felt.
If the regular chakrams the cat used were quick and clean, then the bladed wheel was a barbaric imitation, no different from a horrid torture weapon designed to inflict the worst wounds to the target it could.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek in a weak attempt to ignore the pain that was engulfing her body as she ran to pick up her discarded hook with her uninjured left paw, nearly slipping on her own bloodied feet as she spun back towards the still downed cat, preparing to end this fight.
And as he raised her hook over her head, ready to slam it down into Castor's skull, she felt a sudden loss of balance as the hook left her hand- NO!
The hook was still in her hand, her paw still held the weapon.
Lulu let out a pained scream, closer to the screech of a dying animal than any scream she let out in her entire life before that point. Her right paw, bleeding and raw, moved to hold up the gaping wound that marked the middle of her left bicep, distinguishing the arm that was connected to her shoulder from the rest of her arm that was currently on the floor.
And through pained eyes, Lulu watched the chakram that was just thrown up at her dig into the ceiling of the cave and lodge itself, stuck.
With an anguished scream, Lulu kicked the Cat as hard as she could, hoping he would lose consciousness, before she clambered out of the crevice.
She dragged her bleeding body towards the previously discarded hook, still connected to the rope, and picked it up. She tied the rope around her bleeding stump, tightening it as much as she could in an attempt to stem the bleeding, the hook still attached to the rope, dangling beside her, little more than a trinket, unusable in her current state.
Her vision was beginning to fade; she had to get as far away before the sun rose.
She knew that the moment morning arrived, the Argonauts would notice she was gone, and they'd start looking. It wouldn't take long for them to follow Castor's path, and once they arrived here, they'll simply follow the blood that was staining the sand and rocks.
She needed to get away, she needed to clean her wounds, she needed to do something!
Anything!
She was The Hyena! The Greatest Bandit south of Abyssinia! She couldn't allow herself to die like this! Bleeding out on the outskirts of Farasi!
"The Storm King..." She whispered as she dragged herself away, remembering the figure that ruined her life.
He took down her gang, forced her into his service, mocked her attempts at ending him- And why wouldn't he?
He was- She was a simple bandit, and he was The Storm King.
Yes, of course! That's why she was losing.
He was The Storm King, The King who is a Storm, A Natural Phenomenon given form, and she was just a lowly Bandit.
She would have lost her gang if a hurricane were to sweep through her quarry; How is he any different?
She would have been swept against her will if a tornado were to blow her away; How is he any different?
She couldn't put an end to a monsoon by stabbing it with her hooks; How is he any different?
Yes, of course! She lost the moment she even attempted to fight back.
Lulu felt her knees buckle as she collapsed on the edge of a river, her bleeding paw outstretched, only half a meter from the water, but she could go no further.
She chuckled to herself, perhaps finding humor in the circumstances of her last moments, or perhaps she was merely going mad.
And as her eyes began to slowly close, her body unable to keep itself going as it continued to lose blood, she felt something wet drop onto her back.
And then another wet drop hit her leg, and then her other leg, and more and more small wet splashes began falling around and on top of her.
"Heh~" Lulu chuckled as she closed her eyes, the raindrops falling around her growing heavier and heavier, as the soft drizzle began turning into a torrential downpour, the nearby river raging before a wave came and swallowed her up, dragging her away.
And the last thing the Aardwolf previously known as The Hyena heard the thunder cracking in the sky above her, a simple thought passed through her mind.
"I hate storms."