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The air was damp and heavy as the group pushed forward, weaving their way deeper into the heart of the Brocéliande forest. Trees twisted unnaturally above them, forming a canopy so dense that it almost blocked out the sky. A strange, glowing mist clung to the ground, and the forest grew quieter with every step, as if holding its breath.
After hours of travel, the sound of trickling water broke the silence. The group emerged from the treeline and found themselves standing at the edge of a wide, dark river. The water was still, reflecting the forest’s haunting colors like a black mirror. Tied loosely to a nearby post was a small wooden boat: old, but sturdy enough to carry them.
“This must be the way across,” Hugo said, eyeing the vessel warily. “Or a trap.”
“We don’t have many options,” C replied, already stepping into the boat.
The others followed. The river crossing was slow and tense, the only sounds being the quiet splash of the oars and the occasional creak of wood. The forest on the other side looked even darker than before.
Once they reached the opposite shore, they followed a narrow, winding path until they came across something unexpected: a village that is small, quiet, and entirely made for puppets.
The buildings were doll-sized, but many had been destroyed or left to rot. Puppet bodies lay scattered throughout the village; collapsed on porches, slumped against walls, frozen mid-step. Their lifeless glass eyes stared at nothing, their limbs twisted as if they'd fallen during some forgotten escape.
“This is... unsettling,” Romeo muttered, keeping his hand close to his weapon.
“Not just dolls,” P said, crouching beside one. “Functional. Like me.”
Gemini’s light flickered nervously. “Something happened here. Something bad.”
The group fanned out to investigate, but the silence of the village was quickly broken. Without warning, the air buzzed with electricity and then, from the shadows, they came.
A squad of Elite puppets dropped from rooftops and emerged from alleyways. Unlike the ones they’d seen before, these were sleek, armored, and fast; crafted with precision and clearly designed for combat. Their eyes glowed red as they charged.
“AMBUSH!” C shouted, pulling out her daggers.
Chaos erupted. Blades clashed and sparks flew as the group fought back. Romeo’s flaming Puppet Ripper cut through one of the attackers, while Hugo provided cover with his bow. C ducked and rolled between enemies, striking fast and vanishing into the shadows.
But in the frenzy, P was separated from the others. He found himself cornered, forced to retreat through a crumbling alley. A puppet lunged at him but he countered with a swift parry, then sprinted down a side street, deeper into the village.
Rain started to fall. Soft at first, then heavier. The sound of battle behind him faded as he stumbled toward a large, broken structure at the edge of the village: an old church, its stained glass shattered and its doors barely hanging on their hinges.
Inside, the silence returned. Dust hung in the air. The church was a ruin, long abandoned, but there was something sacred about its stillness.
At the altar stood a man. His body was part human, part machine; elegant in form, brutal in posture. His cloak, made from tattered animal pelts and metal wiring, rustled as he turned. One eye glowed faintly, mechanical, the other cold and human. In one hand he held a crossbow the size of a man’s torso, and on his back was a blade almost as tall as him.
“You’re one of Gepetto’s,” the man said, his voice gravelly with a worn-out authority. “I was wondering when one of you would make it here.”
P stepped forward, sword still gripped tight. “Artémis Larue.”
The man nodded. “Hunter. Exile. And the one who cleared this cursed village.”
P’s eyes narrowed. “You… did this?”
Artémis didn’t flinch. “I did. I couldn’t take chances. The puppet frenzy spread like fire–some of them lost control, started attacking anything that moved. I couldn’t tell who was still conscious, who was too far gone. I wasn’t going to wait to find out.”
“They were like me,” P said, anger flaring. “Thinking. Feeling.”
“And you think I didn’t know that?” Artémis snapped, taking a step closer. “I’ve seen your kind go from companions to killers in the blink of an eye. I made a choice. One I don’t regret.”
There was a beat of silence. Rain dripped from the rafters. The tension was thick.
“I’m not one of them,” P said, raising his sword. “But I’m not going to let you get away with what you did.”
Artémis unslung his massive blade, letting it rest on his shoulder. “Then let’s see if your words are worth more than theirs.”
The fight was fierce. Artémis fought like a seasoned predator; every move calculated, every swing meant to kill. P was faster, more agile, ducking under the hunter’s sweeping strikes, countering with quick jabs and precise slashes.
Metal clanged on metal. Sparks flew. The broken stained-glass windows trembled from the force of their blows.
At one point, Artémis caught P with a kick to the chest, sending him crashing into a pillar. “You're strong,” he admitted. “But are you free ? Or just following the last command your creator gave you?”
P stood, coughing. “I choose to protect. I choose to fight you. That’s all the freedom I need.”
Artémis Larue raised his sword from his back with a scraping, almost reverent slowness. The blade was massive: a cleaver built for crushing rather than slicing, its edge ragged from years of use. His cloak shifted with him, revealing more mechanical limbs beneath the folds of fabric and fur.
P tightened his grip on his saber. His frame was smaller, but his stance was practiced, exact. Where Artémis moved like a wounded beast, P moved like a precision instrument: silent, controlled, deadly.
“Last chance,” Artémis said, voice low, as if hoping P would turn and walk away.
“I don’t want your mercy,” P replied.
Then they clashed.
The first exchange was thunderous. Artémis brought his cleaver down like a guillotine, splintering the floorboards as P dodged to the side, retaliating with a flick of his wrist. His saber sliced a thin line across Artémis’s ribs, drawing sparks but no blood. The hunter grunted and spun, using his momentum to slam the butt of his sword into P’s side. The puppet staggered but didn’t fall.
P retaliated with a burst of speed, dashing forward and executing a flurry of tight, elegant strikes—slashes aimed at joints, exposed wires, weaknesses. Artémis blocked with brute strength, the force of his parries shaking the very walls of the church.
“You’re faster than the others,” Artémis admitted, breath fogging the air. “Smarter too. But speed fades. Anger fades.”
P ducked under a wide arc of the hunter’s blade and used the opening to slice across the hunter’s thigh. Artémis snarled and retaliated with a brutal headbutt, catching P off-guard and sending him flying backward into a cracked column.
“Pain, though,” Artémis growled. “Pain lasts.”
The old pillar crumbled behind P as he staggered to his feet. Rain poured through holes in the roof, sizzling on metal and washing dust into rivulets on the floor.
“I’ve felt pain,” P spat, rising. “And I still chose not to become like you.”
Artémis roared and charged.
The second round was even more vicious. Artémis didn’t hold back. His strikes were like falling trees: wide, devastating, final. P ducked, parried, rolled, narrowly avoiding each swing. At one point, Artémis grabbed P by the arm and hurled him through a stained-glass window. P crashed through it, landing hard among shattered colored glass and debris.
He didn’t stay down. He rose with a whir of gears and a renewed fire in his eyes. His systems buzzed with damage warnings, but he silenced them. He was more than a machine.
P launched himself at Artémis again, and this time he changed the tempo. He danced. Each movement was a whisper. He blurred through the pews, using them as cover, sliding beneath a strike, springing from above with blade outstretched. One cut sliced open the shoulder of Artémis’s armor. Another dug deep into his side.
The hunter staggered but caught P mid-attack and slammed him into the wall, driving the air out of his vents.
“You fight like a Stalker,” Artémis said through gritted teeth, pinning P with his forearm. “But you’re still a puppet. Still just…”
P jammed his elbow upward into the hunter’s jaw. “I’m still standing, aren’t I?”
Artémis reeled back, and P followed with a brutal uppercut that sent the older man crashing into the altar, splitting it in half. The sacred wood burst apart, candles and old icons scattering across the floor.
Both paused, panting. Rain dripped from their faces. Blood—real and synthetic—mingled on the floor.
Artémis looked at P, truly looked at him now. “You were never one of the broken ones.”
P didn’t respond. He simply waited.
Artémis rose slowly, blade dragging behind him like a reaper’s scythe.
“Then let me ask you this,” he said. “If you were in my place, watching your friends die one by one, seeing puppets tear children in half—what would you have done?”
“I would’ve tried to save someone ,” P said. “Not abandon everyone.”
Artémis surged forward with a desperate cry, fury propelling him. P met him head-on.
Their final clash was shorter but brutal. Blades clashed with deafening force. Sparks flew in all directions. P ducked under one wild swing and buried his saber into the meat of Artémis’s bicep.
The battle continued until both combatants were bruised, burned, and bloodied: one by metal, the other by pride.
Eventually, Artémis lowered his weapon first. Breathing hard, he studied P with something that almost resembled respect.
“You're not like the others,” he said, voice softer now. “Maybe I was wrong.”
P didn’t drop his blade. “You were.”
Artémis looked around at the ruined church. “Then let me make it right. There’s more going on in this forest than you know. The frenzy, the corruption… It’s not random. Something’s manipulating it.”
The rain outside had softened to a whisper, and in the quiet aftermath of their battle, the church felt less like a battlefield and more like a tomb: of the village, of the past, and nearly, of them.
P and Artémis stood among the shattered pews, the scent of damp wood and scorched metal still lingering in the air. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then a soft, tiny voice broke the silence.
“Actually, the Puppet Frenzy… it’s stopped.”
A faint orange glow flickered from the lantern at P’s belt. “It ended when we stopped Simon Manus and Geppetto ,” Gemini said. “They were the source of it all. Their experiments and madness spread across the city, across the forest. But Simon’s gone now. And Gepetto is missing. It’s over.”
Artémis furrowed his brow, his mechanical eye adjusting with a soft whirr. “Gone?”
Gemini chirped. “Dead. And the influence he had over the puppets and the Alchemists died with him. You don’t need to fight anymore.”
The hunter looked down at his blood-slicked blade, then to the ruined village outside the church walls. He was still. Heavy with the weight of what he’d done.
“I see…” he murmured, his voice low and hoarse. “Then I’ve killed innocents.”
No one replied. The silence answered for them.
After a moment, Gemini spoke again, gentler now. “You can go back to Hotel Krat . There’s someone there. Lorenzini Venigni . He could reset you. Wipe your guilt. Give you a clean slate.”
Artémis shook his head slowly. “No. No resets. If I forget, then I learn nothing. Letting myself forget would be the coward’s way out.”
He unfastened the massive crossbow from his back and walked it over to P.
“I forged this myself,” he said, placing it into P’s hands. “It’s called Hecate . Takes special bolts: fast, brutal, and silent. You’ve got something I don’t have anymore… hope. Use it to protect the things I couldn’t.”
P accepted it, nodding once with solemn gratitude.
“But what about you?” Gemini asked. “Now that you know the truth?”
Artémis looked around the decaying church. “I stay. Here. I helped destroy this village. It deserves at least one ghost to remember it.”
P stepped forward, firm. “No. Don’t bury yourself in guilt. You still have a choice.”
Artémis didn’t respond.
Gemini chimed in again, his tiny voice gentle but firm. “There’s more to life now, Artémis. The Frenzy is over. The world isn’t what it was. You don’t have to be what you were.”
For the first time, the old hunter faltered. His gaze softened, his shoulders sagged.
“…I’m tired,” he whispered.
P extended a hand.
“Then rest somewhere where the sky isn't falling apart.”
The silence lingered again then Artémis chuckled, just once, dry and bitter like wind through dead leaves. He gripped P’s hand.
“Fine. One last journey.”
As they turned to leave the church, a familiar voice rang out from the doorway.
“P!”
The rest of the group rushed in; Gemini’s voice must’ve guided them. Romeo, Hugo and C all stood soaked in rain and relief.
Romeo looked between P and Artémis, crossbow in hand and tension still in the air. “Everything okay?”
P nodded. “New friend.”
Artémis stepped forward, towering over the group, his metallic armor clinking softly. “Name’s Artémis Larue,” he said simply. “Hunter. Might be of use to you… if you’ll have me.”
Gemini puffed up slightly with pride. “He’s with us now.”
The group looked between each other; hesitant, but nodding. After all they’d been through, what was one more lost soul?
Together, they stepped out into the rain, leaving behind the ruins of the puppet village and the ghosts it held.
The forest was still, for now. And somewhere ahead, the path to Hotel Krat waited–along with the next shadow hiding just out of sight.