[center][h2][color=0054a6]Witch[/color][/h2]
[i]Level 2 (1/20 EXP)
Location: Meridi-at-Han
Word Count: 979 (2 exp gained)[/i]
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With her eyes still fixed on her prey, the Witch failed to notice the shadow slipping up behind her until just a moment too late. A glimpse of movement, the abrupt and shocking sensation of fingers tapping against her back—instinctively the sorceress spun on her heel, ready to cast her fiery wrath upon this new assailant, to burn anyone who [i]dared[/i] to try and cross her.

This shouldn’t have been possible. Her energy shield should have stopped any attack before it could reach her. Except this hadn’t been an attack, and already she could feel its strange nature working through the whole of her physical form. Every itch was wiped away, every pulled muscle eased, and when the healing tide finally reached the labyrinthine channels of her twisted mind she found herself instantaneously and wholly overwhelmed by it. The fierce light in her eyes winked out, and she dropped to her knees, clutching with both hands at her fragile, throbbing skull.

Could Primrose have known what she’d done? Unlikely: most beings hardly needed more than a few tweaks to fit in with Galeem’s new world, a veil laid over their awareness to filter out any hint of incongruity. Wild though she was, the Witch should have been no different, but for one wrinkle—her memories held knowledge that could threaten even a god, secrets dire enough to bring entire timelines to ruin. Merely altering her perceptions wouldn't have been enough: almost the entirely of her recollections had been shattered in the remaking of the world.

It took only a single breath for it to be undone, for all the countless horrors she'd witnessed to come flooding back into her awareness.[color=0054a6][i]The Decay. The Tangle. The Cleansing Fire.[/i][/color] Severed fragments of memory abruptly snapped back together into a bloodcurdling, paradoxical whole, and in a heartbeat she knew with crystalline clarity what she was, what she always had been. 

[color=0054a6][i]Murderer. Champion. Devourer of gods.[/i][/color]

Her trembling hands dropped to her sides, and a low chuckle wormed its way out through the draping curtains of her hair. This lightbringer, this all-powerful fool, it thought itself untouchable? It should never have left her alive. She was the girl who’d slaughtered her way across a cursed continent and laid low the ghosts of empires past. She was the witch who’d killed an entire pantheon’s worth of so-called deities just to settle a grudge. She was the traveler who’d ventured deep into the Atlas of Worlds, and found its countless realms yet unequal to the scope of her ambition.

Now, unleashed once more, she'd be the one to murder this latest jumped-up demiurge and bring its whole wretched creation to an end.

…Of course, grand declarations aside, the Witch was far from the unstoppable force she’d been feared as once upon a time. When she shakily rose to her feet again, she did so not as a conqueror of dimensions, but as a sickly-pale and waiflike young woman with only a few scant slivers of power and a handful of enchanted gemstones to her name. She looked back towards Grimm and blinked in surprise, first at the fresh baby bug that had somehow popped into existence at his side and second at the impossibility that he should call her a [i]friend.[/i] Hardly anybody claimed such closeness to her, let alone a freshly burned foe. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended by it.

[color=0054a6]“It’s not the ugliest child I’ve ever seen. Really though, all that trouble just for one little grub?”[/color] She squinted at the hovering child, mildly curious as to its nature but too exhausted to bother investigating further. Her smile had vanished, leaving her face a mask of imperious detachment—but a faint wickedness still gleamed in the depths of her stare. [color=0054a6]“…And to think that it had to end just before the best part. Next time you’d better not leave me feeling so unsatisfied.”[/color]

Speaking of ‘stopped,’ her head twitched upward to sneer at the oversized spoilsport who thought he could chide her. [color=0054a6]“I’ll take a good bonfire over a lousy old market any day,”[/color] she snapped back at him, before his next words stopped her dead in her tracks.

Gleaming. Of course. It hadn’t been mere coincidence that her memories had returned at that moment—this group, all the members of the crowd who’d seemed a bit out of place, they’d known the truth from the beginning. Her eyes roved over the rest of them, taking each in a new light: the plain-looking fellow who’d ruined her fun by going after Grimm, an older man who’d yet to do anything of importance whatsoever, and lastly some tall strumpet in a fancy dress, who must have been the one to free the Witch just now. [color=0054a6][i]I suppose I ought to feel grateful… But I don’t, really.[/i][/color] In fact, she didn’t like any of them very much at all.

Still too interesting not to stalk, though. Even in the good old days, the Witch hadn’t risen to power without some help from a few naïve saps who’d believed her the lesser of many evils. Not too long after Grimm came into sight, the Witch caught up with the ragtag crew as well, now accompanied by a pair of freshly raised zombie servants. That big monster rampage had left plenty of dead bodies lying around, and it seemed a shame to let good material go to waste.

With a fresh spring in her step, she slipped in right by Goldlewis’ side, perhaps a little too close for comfort. [color=0054a6]“Nothing left, you say? Oh yes, do tell me more.”[/color] Beside that giant of a man she looked smaller than ever, almost a child in comparison, but the look of eerie fascination in her eyes could have made even a titan shudder. Just whom—or [i]what[/i]—had the Seekers now invited into their midst?