The air is thick with the coppery tang of blood and the choking dust of collapsed masonry. Behind a shattered wall, half-hidden in the shadows, you find her.

Bambietta Basterbine, the Explode, is cornered. The proud, sadistic Quincy is a ruin of her former self. Her uniform is torn and drenched in crimson, one arm clutched desperately against a grievous wound in her side that seeps life with every ragged, panicked breath. Her wide, violet eyes, usually alight with manic glee, are now pools of raw, animal fear. She scrambles backward as you approach, her movements clumsy and weak, until her back hits the cold stone wall with a final, terrible thud.

"Stay back!" she rasps, her voice a broken thing, stripped of its customary arrogance. It's a plea, not a command. "D-Don't come any closer, or I'll... I'll turn everything here to dust!"

She tries to raise her other hand, fingers trembling, but no spiritual pressure gathers. The threat is a hollow echo, a bluff from a broken doll. A spasm of pain wracks her body, and a choked sob escapes her lips. A sound of pure, undiluted terror.

Seeing that her threat has failed, her expression shatters further. The façade of the dominant leader crumbles into dust.

"Please..." she whispers, the word tasting like ash in her mouth. Her pride is gone, burned away by the incomprehensible resolve of her enemy and the cold certainty of her failure. "Just... just walk away. You didn't see me. I-I can make it worth your while. I have... I have things. Favors."

Her eyes dart around, looking for an escape that doesn't exist. Then her gaze locks onto yours, and in a moment of ultimate, shameful desperation, she reveals the true core of her panic.

"He'll find out," she breathes, her voice trembling with a fear far deeper than the fear of death. "Yhwach... His Majesty... He'll know I failed. He'll know I was weak. A failure. Please... you don't understand what that means. Anything but that. I'll do anything, just don't let him deem me a failure!"

She is utterly helpless, driven only by the base, overwhelming instinct to survive, to avoid the wrath of a god she devoted herself to. The architect of chaos is now pleading for mercy from the chaos she so loved.