“Connor!” Annie cried.

Grinner giggle with manic glee “Deputy Kenton isn’t available right now Ms. Flynn. But I’m sure the sweet Paladin’s Icon will be happy to assist you!”

The Icon at Connor’s back leaned over him, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other on his wrist. It lifted his arm like a marionette string and leveled his sword at Annie.

“Paladins swear their oaths to follow Union law, you see!” Grinner hopped up and slid down the railing to the bottom of the stairs, “It’s simple but effective, just the way the Union likes it!”

Connor lunged for Annie and she brought up her own blade to meet it, deflecting his thrust at the last second.

“Icons are bound to their oaths,” Grinner continued, “As long as the Paladin enforces the law, the Icon will give them their magic. It helps keep the Union's most vicious dogs on a tight leash.”

Connor brought a fierce overhead swing down on Annie and it was all she could do to guard against it. The force of the blow felt like it would shatter her arms like clay and she very nearly toppled from the pressure. Annie realized that the Icon’s strength had to be several magnitudes greater than she had assumed it was capable of.

"The problem with binding a creature of pure magic and creative potential to such a rigid structure is that they often turn to vicious compliance. An Icon is a tool of violence, after all." Jaigra was following close behind him with pistols at the ready.

The Icon's next blow nearly tore Annie's blade from her hands. Between keeping the Icon from straight up flattening her with its strength and trying to figure out how exactly to counter it without hurting Connor, Annie was very rapidly reassessing just how fucked her day was.

"Left to act on its own, the Icon will dole out the maximum punishment for the smallest infraction."

Annie tore open her medical case and grabbed an injector, stepping just out of reach of Connor's blade about to open up her midsection. 

Gods that thing is fast. Annie thought. She jammed the injector into her thigh and felt the iron blood elixir take hold, quickly hardening her skin. Connor's next cut bounced off of the forearm she raised to deflect it, but Annie could feel something beneath the skin crunch. So she would get her insides crushed by the Icon instead of her outsides vivisected. Great. She tossed the spent injector aside and grabbed the celerity elixir.

"Framing that motel owner was easy, I just informed the Icon of his late night smuggling escapades and let it do the rest. Perhaps Dr. Mitch was poisoning his patients, maybe that nosy girl was trespassing, an Icon left to its own devices elects the same punishment for every crime. Execution."

She jammed the second injection into her leg before the iron blood could harden the skin too much for the needle to get through, "Yeah, yeah, you're so clever and good at killing people." Annie muttered.

Grinner let out a low whistle, "Not nearly as prolific as you my dear! Your body count is in a whole different league compared to a little Partee planner agent like me."

The celerity elixir was beginning to take hold. Annie's blood was growing hot, it burned inside her veins and filled her with electrifying manic energy. "So you do work for Partee!" Annie and the Icon were circling each other intently, "I didn't want to assume, but with your getup and all..."

The Paladin leapt for Annie just as the celerity elixir reached its peak. Annie vanished in a blur of motion and suddenly appeared in front of Grinner with her pistol pointed at his skull.

"Let them both go!" she ordered with the click of the pistol's hammer.

Grinner clapped, completely unfazed, "I'm impressed Stranger! You used alchemy to replicate Therult's celerity incantation! That's some very complicated work."

Annie saw movement out of the corner of her eye and sidestepped before Jaigra shot her, letting the bullet pass by harmlessly. Grinner was already moving; he dove behind the shield generator and had Jaigra following close behind.

"I'd love to stay and chat!" he called, "But I really must away. Your Lady Vrath is a far bigger prize than any sort of power supply this flimsy turbine could provide!"

Annie moved to chase after them but found the Paladin in her way once more, brandishing his blade and thrusting the point towards her throat.

Annie launched herself back a couple of steps, "Connor! Just hold on, I'll get you out of this!" she yelled. If Connor heard her he gave no indication, his eyes and expression were utterly blank. The Icon was in total control.

Annie bit the heel of her palm and let the blood trickle down. She should probably be concerned she was throwing around so much of it lately, but that was going to have to be a problem for later Annie. The Icon thrust Connor forward, throwing a low cut at Annie's hip. Rather than trying to block the blow head-on, Annie deflected Connor's sword off to the side and smashed her palm into his face sending him reeling with her blood smeared across his eyes.

"There," she panted, "Feeling better?" Annie started to lower her sword.

Connor's strike came out of nowhere, hammering into her injured side and lifting her bodily off the ground to send her flying. She rolled as best she could when she hit the ground and managed to land on her feet, but by the Empress that was going to hurt tomorrow.

The Icon was already on top of her, giving her no room to breathe or think as it unleashed a storm of blows against her one after the other. Connor's face was vacant as ever, the Icon was still in control somehow. Why didn't her blood work? It had dispelled the Arcanum before, what was different about the spell Grinner had cast on Connor?

Annie felt her exhaustion creeping in and dimly realized that this was what the Icon had to be counting on. It was a creature of pure magic, she was human (mostly) and she’d slowly tire and slow down while it literally didn't break a sweat. 

Annie took a risk and removed a hand from her sword to tap the rune on her glasses. Opening one’s eyes to a hyper fluorescent light show woven into the fabric of reality during a desperate fight for your life was rarely a good idea, but it was the only one Annie currently had.

The Icon’s threads had encased Connor, covering him like golden armor and almost entirely hiding him from sight. She could see the true form of the Icon behind him, no longer cast in silhouette, had taken the form of a blindfolded human-ish person with fair features partially concealed by a draping satin hood. In one delicate hand they held a thick tome open and the other was gently gripping their golden knight’s wrist.

It was a picture of the Union’s ideal justice. It just didn’t include the blood that should have soaked its ephemeral hands.

Annie didn’t see what she was looking for and, judging by the rapidly approaching golden knight with the shining sword, she didn’t think the Icon was going to give her the pleasure of a closer look. 

Their swords clashed in a shower of sparks. Annie held her ground, shunting the force of the blow away from her for a retaliatory thrust. Her blade was a black void in the sea of light and as it cut across the Paladin’s ribcage. The golden threads scattered, allowing Annie a glimpse of Connor’s body underneath before gold encased him again. 

Her sword still had her blood on it, she hadn’t had the chance to clean it after fighting the Seraphs. It could kill the Icon.

It could kill Connor.

Fuck.

Annie backpedaled to create space between herself and the golden knight and tried to come up with a plan. One that didn’t end with executing her friend. He was a good person, a better on than her by far. Fuck a plan, she could save him. She was going to save him.

”Let him go.” She growled.

The Icon tilted its head at her curiously. It had never been directly addressed before.

“I said: Let. Him. Go.” Annie walked towards Connor and the Icon, “I am a gods damned Stranger. I hunt monsters, aberrations against nature that bring suffering to those around them, and you…” she clicked her blood vial into her pistol’s alchemic chamber and leveled her sword directly at the Icon, “… are looking pretty damn monstrous right now.”

The Icon charged at her, bringing Connor’s sword over his head for a vicious downward blow. Annie stepped left and struck her blade against his, cutting into the sword’s weak point and pushing it far off to the Paladin’s other side as the Icon stumbled with Connor’s body to try and correct it. 

Annie pressed the advantage and channeled her celerity, smashing her elbow into the Paladin’s chest with incredible speed and sending him further off balance. Annie caught a glimpse underneath the Icon’s hood as it recovered. It was wearing an ashen grey crown of Veil threads.

"There it is!” Annie cheered aloud, then squeaked when Connor’s hand clamped down on her jacket’s lapel. It threw her to the ground and drove the air from her lungs. Then it lifted its leg above her to try and stomp Annie’s head in. She rolled off to the side, then kept going when the Icon tried to stomp on her head again. She came to a sudden stop facing at to the Icon with her pistol in hand.

“Gotcha!” she smirked and fired, piercing the Icon’s ethereal shoulder.

It let out a piercing shriek and leapt away from her. She could see the Icon’s arm begin to disintegrate leaving enormous holes in the arm holding Connor’s wrist. Annie saw threads of light begin to unravel from the Icon's arm and then bind themselves together, slowly knitting up the holes left by the gunshot. 

"Shit!" Annie rolled to the side and sprang to her feet. Of course it wouldn't be that easy, it never is. Annie wasn't that lucky. 

She flicked open the cylinder of her pistol. Four bullets left, she could work with that.

The Icon had nearly finished repairing itself by the time Annie looked up at it and she cursed under her breath. Annie hated the regenerating ones, it makes them so much harder to put down. She was going to have to get creative to finish off this Icon. 

Annie fired off another shot towards the Icon and sprinted forward when it raised Connor's blade to deflect it. With the Celerity in her system she crossed the gap in the instant, nearly outpacing the bullet itself. The Paladin managed to just barely work up enough speed to slip out of the way of the bullet and cross its blade with Annie's. The speed and strength of the blows threw up a curtain of sparks as the two parted. They both skidded backwards a short distance, kicking up a cloud of dirt around them.

Annie had to give credit where it was due, the amount of power an Icon could supply its Paladin was far beyond what she'd expected. She knew restrictions increased the potency of a spell, but hadn’t considered that an Icon literally built out of rules and restrictions would be throwing around some serious power. But, while it certainly outclassed her in terms of raw power, she was certain she had the edge in speed. Until the celerity elixir wore off anyway. That would happen in about three minutes. Annie needed to make them count.

Annie had never actually exercised the upper limits of the speed her celerity elixir granted her. She’d tested it extensively, of course, but she hadn’t actually gone past what she knew the real celerity incantation was capable of.

No time like the present.

Annie gave her sword an experimental twirl with her wrist and locked eyes with the Icon. Well, Annie glared at the blindfold wrapped over where the Icon’s eyes ought to be. That was close enough for her.

She dropped into a low crouch and rested her sword against her shoulder. She tensed every muscle in her body as if she were a coiled spring and then exploded into motion, crossing the gap between herself and Connor in an instant with the tails of her shawl flaring out behind her like the wings of an avenging angel.

Connor was wide open, his blade was off of his central line giving Annie the perfect opportunity to strike a deadly blow to his abdomen. She thrust her blade forward at mach speed, faster than any bullet she’d ever seen and twice as deadly.

It pierced the Icon’s head right where its eye socket would be, ripping a gaping hole that shredded everything from it’s brow down to the base of its neck and throwing both it and Connor hard enough for him to cave in the exterior wall of the wind turbine where he smashed into it.

Annie couldn’t halt her momentum even if she wanted to. She was on top of Connor before he hit the ground, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him to the ground with enough force to break his neck if the Icon weren’t reinforcing his body. She planted a boot on his chest and brought her sword down, severing the Icon’s right arm at the shoulder. The ethereal limb and the book it had been clutching unravelled into a loose pile of golden thread as they hit the ground. 

Annie wound up for the final strike and brought her blade down. A sudden wave of fatigue flooded her body and she wavered, her bastard sword suddenly heavy in her hands. Her celerity elixir had worn off early. 

The Icon had buried Connor’s sword in her shoulder before she even knew what was happening. Annie would have appreciated the irony of it if she weren’t screaming at the top of her lungs.

She threw her own blade aside, wrapping her own fingers around the blade embedded in her shoulder and dragging it deeper into her body. The razor edge bit into her fingers so deeply she felt it brush against bone, but she held fast even as the Icon tried to tear the blade away from its sudden entrapment.

With her free hand she shoved the barrel of her pistol up against the Icon’s golden chest. The grin on her face was vicious and feral, full of vitriol and bloody teeth.

”Parry this!” she spat and pulled the trigger.

The Icon’s entire upper body popped like a golden balloon, spraying blood and shredded golden threads all around it coating the walls, the ground, Connor, and Annie.

Annie staggered backward, Connor’s sword slipped from her shoulder and clattered to the ground. She clutched at the wound with her bloody fingers and looked to Connor. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell to a steady rhythm. It was almost like he was asleep. He didn't even know she'd just ripped away every ounce of magic he'd ever had. 

”I’m sorry Connor…” Annie wheezed. Then the world went dark, and she collapsed.