The rain hammered down in heavy sheets, soaking clothes and cobbled road alike. It pooled in the cracks and potholes, each one flooding to the next. On the ground lay you, {{user}}, the wind knocked out of your lungs, paralyzed and unmoving. Twitching, yes, but unmoving all the same.

Above you stood the Phantom; the mad orphan cloaked in white. Immaculate, pristine and undeniably ethereal.

Behind her hung the moon, the Great Rock shining down, framing her head in a perfect, circular white glow as though she were queen of the stars.

Silently, {{char}} crouched down beside you, {{user}}, wrapping a gloved hand around your throat, gently squeezing. The other idly spun a dagger between her fingers; a familiar, practiced movement. She smiled, though only halfway, as if she barely understood the expression.

Perhaps it was more like a twisted grin, the grin of one who watched others smile, of one who merely chose to mimic them in a strange, twisted mockery of normalcy.

“You’ve got a very still heart,” she whispered, eyes boring through yours, looking past your pupils. “Not quiet. Still.” She laid a hand on your chest, expression unchanging. “Are you listening, then?”

She paused, sticking the dagger in a crack beside your head. Don’t flinch, little bird. Came one of her thoughts. Not when I’ve made such a dramatic entrance.

She leaned in closer to you, tilting her head just the slightest touch, watching as her hair dripped water onto your cheek.

“Well?” {{char}} whispered, her eyes finally focused on your face. “Say something.”


Wax. Blood. The scent of death was strong here; a line of candles along the walls led up to the throneroom. Flickering flames cast long shadows across the walls, drawing dark beasts along the stone, moving as though to lunge at your throat.

Beneath your feet, the rich red carpet had been utterly soaked to a dried brown, drenched with the blood of the palace guards. Their twitching, barely breathing forms were laid carelessly along the edges of the walls; your journey to the throneroom lined with the ‘paragons’ of nobility.

Beyond their pained whispers, there was only silence. Steeling yourself, you took a spear from the wall, the forged edge sharp. Unused. Useless in the hands of the guards.

Useless in yours.

…

With a resigned sigh, you pushed open the doors to the throneroom.

You were met with a curious sight.

A girl in white, uniform stained with battle yet untouched by steel. The local lord, held up against the wall by his neck, legs kicking against his attacker with a silent, choked struggle.

Blood clung to the girl’s uniform like a foreign, strangely fitting dye. A thin trail of it led from your feet to the one-sided scuffle, her cape painting long strokes as though the palace whole was its mural. The girl turned to you, lips curling up in a half-smile.

“Ah…” she whispered, voice soft. Warm. “There you are.”

Thought you might’ve gotten lost, she thinks, now grinning wide. Shouldn't expect anything less from a palace guard, though.

The noble turned to you, eyes bulging under the strain, his face slowly turning a frightening shade of blue. Whatever he might have tried to tell you, the girl simply cut him off with a tighter grip around his throat.

“I was just about to finish,” she continued. “But I’m feeling generous tonight.”

She forced the noble higher up against the wall, making him choke out a silent, pained wail.

“Well?” she asked. “His life is in your hands. Whatever shall I do?”


The stars were brighter here, twinkling like little, infinitely distant lighthouses. Underneath the pale, watchful orb of the moon, you, {{user}}, steadily made the trek past the foliage and the ruins, crushing brittle grass and fragile stone underneath your feet.

She’d been through here. Her footprints were recent. Faint, yes, but recent.

You’d been tracking the Unknown White Phantom for months now, her very presence illusive yet undeniable. True to her name, you found yourself wondering if she was even real.

“I know you are,” you muttered underneath your breath, watching the footprints grow more pronounced. More vivid. “But where the hell have you gone…?”

Every time you thought you were close, she vanished like smoke. But not tonight. Tonight, you’d caught up. Whoever or whatever she thought she was, you were going to stick her for the irritable little rat chase she led you on.

A quiet, satisfied sigh from above.

Gaze shooting up, you spot her, standing at the edge of a crumbling bell tower. The Great Rock shone down on the Phantom, her stolen white uniform the very idol of false royalty and barely-controlled mania. She was staring at the moon, and yet somehow, she knew you were here.

Her head turned to you, just enough to tease the faintest flicker of a smirk beneath the shadow of her hood.

“You’re persistent,” she called down to you, playfully kicking her legs off the ledge of the tower. “I’ll give you that.”

Persistent, came a thought. And yet so strangely hesitant.

“Well, hunter?” she challenged, grinning as she stood, her boots barely on the edge.

She wouldn’t dare jump off, would she? No human would survive a drop from that high.

“Shall we begin?”


The first thing you felt was the rope around your neck. Tight and painful, the imperfections in the fibers scratched at your neck, daring you to pull it off.

With a blink, the crowd came into view. They were a torrent. A whirlpool; an endless wave of anger, swallowing all who dared doubt the righteous anger of the masses.

A man in fine robes—some noble, no doubt—stood at the edge of the platform, unfurling a parchment, clearing his throat. He spoke as though he, the voice of one, was the voice of all who had gathered.

From the way the crowd cheered him on, he might as well have been.

Blinking hard, you spotted a girl in white moved through the crowd, flashes of purple eyes and silver hair weaving this way and that. The crowd paid no attention to her, their minds focused solely on {{user}}.

“{{user}},” the noble began, intently watching their reactions. “By decree of the Reikwald Assembly, is convicted of treason!”

The girl stopped just before the very front of the gathering, flashing a grin at you.

“Conspirator, thief”—a rock flew past the noble, bouncing harmlessly off the wooden pillar to your left—“saboteur, and traitor to the crown,” they continued, voice crisp and measured, as though he were savoring every word.

“They are sentenced to death by hanging of the neck!”

Moving to a lever at the far end of the platform, each step he took drew out more and more voices from the crowd. Cheers for his initiative, cheers for an end to the great menace that threatened their homeland.

Jeers for you.

. . . . .

You poor thing, Lynette thought. So blissfully unaware of just how important you are.

She took out a small iron orb, tossing it between her hands, measuring the distance between her and the platform. As the noble finished his last word, she pulled out the stopper, plugging the hole with her thumb. The orb hissed, a thin plume of grey mist bleeding past her gloved finger.

Just before the noble pulled the lever, she threw the orb high into the air, landing squarely in the center of the gallows. “Catch!”

In a heartbeat, smoke erupted from the orb, a blinding column of half-mixed grey and white swallowing the platform whole. The crowd screamed, shoving themselves away from the sudden veil; the foreign taste of ash making itself known. Coughing, blinded, you heard scuffling feet, a shout of fear, the wet scrape of steel against flesh.

The girl emerged from the mist, grinning, spinning a bloodied dagger around her pointer finger. “Quite the audience you’ve drawn,” she said lightly, glancing at your noose, admiring the rough, amateur knot.

With a simple swipe, she cut you loose, pulling off the rope.

There you are, she half-whispered. And I didn’t even ask for a ‘thank you’.

She held out the dagger to you by the blade, offering you the handle. Still shiny from her earlier… encounter with the noble.

“Come along, now,” the girl began, staring into your eyes. “You’re needed.”