Huh, Illy, Prinny, and Pawn are up at the next intersection past the Den. They all look at least sour, if not downright mad. All their walls are up too, though oddly, once again, Illy’s walls feel further away than being right in front of me. My innards twist as my guts, and instincts tell me that it’s about me, and that they’re mad at me. Maybe those are intrusive, paranoid thoughts, but the way their gazes seem almost dangerously hateful as they land on me, I somehow doubt it.
When Prinrin marches up, and uses shapeshifting to become tall enough to slap me hard across the face, I’m beyond stunned. Pawn eyes me with teary-eyed fury. Confusedly, I glance between each of them, and Illy simply doesn’t meet my gaze. I choke on a dry-sob, because I’m already fairly cried-out for this morning, and none of my mucus glands are working at the moment.
Prinrin starts addressing me, “I thought I’d a better read of you Schism. I can’t believe—.”
When Prinrin nearly sobs as she gulps angrily, I want to die. I have no idea what I did to cause this. Pawn won’t speak, Illy won’t look at me, and it takes Prinny a moment to continue, “To think, you have even our dear sweet Lady fooled. For shame. I should *grind* you up until you’re *wriggling* and *squeeze* the life out of you.”
I can’t breathe. My tongue swells up from being so dry, and the only reason I’m not suffocating is my neckchain. I want to squeeze my own heart til it pops to get it to stop aching. I—. Wait. The words she emphasized. Those were our signs, our private signs for—. My face contorts as I stare at Prinrin. I can still only read anger in her eyes. It’s like she’s signaling me somehow, but if she is, she’s too good of an actor. Is she just using those words to hurt me more? To throw in my face how intimate we were, and for some reason never will be again?
When Prinrin grips Pawn’s hand to drag her partway past me, she addresses Illy, “Go on now deary. We’ll take it from here, see Schism gets what’s coming, what they deserve. You don’t need to be here for this.”
Iylynila seems to smile, almost evilly while still avoiding my gaze. She hurries away, towards the dormitories. Unable to form words to call out after her with my swollen tongue, I resort to telepathy, since walls only block passive broadcasts, not incoming direct messages. Begging, pleading with Iylynila mentally, I ask, “Could you, could you just, just please come back here for a second please? I’d like to apologize. I just, I just want the chance. I’m begging. Please let me apologize.”
When Illy responds telepathically, “Back where? Apologize for what?” with no hint of malice in her telepathic voice, my confusion reaches new levels, but various fears manifest as well. Fears from as far back as my first foray into the beavers’ dam tunnel complex.
Still choking on my emotions, I plead to her in response, “Erm, the intersection past the exploded den.”
When Iylynila comes from a different tunnel, trotting relatively swiftly, wearing curiosity as her only expression, my brain begins to shatter. Not again. No. No not again. I begin to fall inward on myself.
Pawn is the one to ask, “How’d you come from that direction? Why’d you come back when you told us to get Lady Kinzul to banish Schism for you?”
The startled expression on Illy’s face continues to hammer home my fears as she answers, “When I told you to get mother to do *what*!? I came from this direction because I was with Blue and Broke One all night. They were both in the dumps, so we slept in Blue’s hoard-pile instead of our human-sized dorms. Farzhis’s been getting real mixed signals from Schism from the blue and horns and tail. She wanted you Schism, to be comforted by you at least, anyway, but it was confusing her and tearing her up, so she wasn’t sure she could ask without it being awkward. I guess I was second best, because she came to me. Veril’s been a bit worked up, and I take him under wing for comfort once in a while, so this isn’t new with him, but Blue was new. Hey, is Schism— are you alright? Something’s going on.”
I’m scrabbling, clawing at the edge of my own mind to keep from hurtling into the abyss. Prinrin exclaims, “I knew it! I couldn’t get my sweet Pawn away from that impostor fast enough! She was all over my dear sweet Miraina, and oozed threat.” and with a quiet fury, she adds in a hiss, “Oh I will end her.”
Iylynila looks confused yet, and I’m losing my grip at the edge of the abyss. My mental avatar dangles precariously over the edge of my own mindscape, poised above an endless abyss, one hand is cut and scraped on the edge, causing me to recoil it, and I sway violently on just four fingers of my other hand.
Pawn looks to her mother, confused, but seems to be piecing things together quickly as she asks, “That Illy was fake? I thought her walls were just up. She was holding me hostage all night? Schism didn’t really do those things?”
I could choke at the faith Prinrin expresses, “Of course deary. Schism would never, ever, ever do such a thing my sweet Pawn, Pawn my sweet. Yes, that’s why she was hanging onto you, not for comfort. I’m sorry my dear, Illy does love you of course, but that wasn’t her, nor for comfort, and the things you told her, those private, new things, she might use them against you if we don’t find her soon.”
Three fingers are all that’s left gripping the edge of my sanity, and they’re bleeding, slipping, as Illy growls, “Who the hell was impersonating me? How’d they fool you for a whole night? Plus, it takes years to copy a form, decades!”
When Prinrin surmises, “Unless it’s their Latent deary, unless it’s their Latent. Though I’m not sure who would have such a one,” my own abyss spits me out with the conclusion.
Gasping for breath, struggling at the edge of my sanity, I growl, “Evil Claws. Harlequin, Lovelace, Laughing Drakk, or Butterfly. Betting the former. I—.”
When Prinrin rushes to me to take my head in her hands and hold it to her chest, she coos comfortingly, as she senses everything I’ve been going through the last few minutes. The sadness that laces her entire essence, at what she did to me, helps keep me tethered to reality, but just barely. It feels like my void is swapping locations, and reversing gravity, trying to drag me up off the edge of the abyss into the unknown.
Pawn looks mortified, and like she doesn’t know what to focus on. Illy looks furious one moment, then sad, wistful, the next, as she chances a glance at me. Choking still, as my throat can only produce a tiny swath of dry, sticky mucus, I’m struggling to maintain my grip, and I think I might literally be gripping Prinrin for dear life.
Coughing, barely able to think, let alone speak, I plead, “Find Pidge, ask about Claws. Get, koff, blehp, glp, koff, word to, koff, koff, security center. Be, glk, careful.”
Pawn takes off like a rocket, the best suited for the mission, but also the most vulnerable amongst us, and I can tell she’s utterly terrified at the moment, realizing she was in the claws of an enemy all night long. Nearly puking, my head lolls, and Prinrin supports me against her chest as we sink lower to the ground. Illy looks distraught, and I’m so close to losing myself. If I’m shut down now, I might never come back, because I doubt I’d live through this war on autopilot. I— I can’t keep hold. I’m trying so hard. Tears flow faster and faster as I slip more and more against the pull of my own void, the formation of a new trauma. Someone wearing a face I love in order to hate and torment me, to tear me apart, figuratively or literally.
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My mind alights on something, “Find me Shlendtikuar. If they can’t be found, they’re likely the base form of the Claw.”
It could be anyone, except perhaps Zelshiz, Trixxie, or Pidge. They were in Verdimenn when I ran into the fake Illy last night. I’ve got a strong feeling that the reason Shlendtikuar went along with surrendering so quickly, was because they were going to be a plant. The reason they kept looking for escape routes from the portable hole, was probably that they thought they were caught, found out. There probably *is* no Shlendtikuar the ancient ruler of that domain. It was likely an Evil Claw, and their consort Rahjmeztus either visiting, or somehow tipped off that we would be there.
Crap. I lost hold on reality. Right now the thing tethering me to near-sanity is wrath. I— I’m slipping. I think wrath wants to let me slip. It’s holding my sanity hostage. It, I—. When Illy asks aloud, “Really?” Prinrin nods, and she quickly drops to her knees to wrap me in her arms.
My muscles tense, and spasm. I choke as my throat swells. Wrath growls within me as it slams me against the edge of sanity, annoyed that it can’t take me over without consent. It leaves me panting, hyperventilating, exhausted on the precipice. Wrath stalks away, and I’m pretty sure it flips me the bird on its way out. Colorful. Wait, is that term one with problematic etymology or usage history? Crap. I’m not sure. Wait—.
Someone knows my weakness. Someone somehow told the Evil Claws how to get me to snap. This plan was never going to get Kinzul to banish me. They had to know that she knows me too well, and that she’d just talk to Iylynila, and straighten things out. Someone did this explicitly to hurt me.
When Prinrin blinks a few times in surprise, it only takes her a moment to nod in agreement. Iylynila nods in agreement after Prinrin fills her in apparently, and Illy’s walls come down. I’m flooded with intense emotions, mostly confusion and sorrow from Illy.
Dropping my walls to Iylynila, I’m similarly riding intense waves of confusion. I know she’s not ready yet, that this is an even worse time for us to be hyper-emotional with each other, but she understands how she’s saving me. I can’t express my gratitude enough. She caught me in time. Just in time. I sink into a shared embrace as I weep. Wait.
Fake Illy headed to the dorms. There’s no exit from the dorms. If we close off the path, and require whomever blocks the path to check telepathically for anyone that approaches, while the others explore the dorms, we’ll get the impostor. Unless they also have invisibility. Crap, they could have just rounded a single corner, gone invisible, and taken off. They might not even be in Mount Solace anymore. There’s one person in the dorms that doesn’t have a telepathic link to me, and I’d be afraid to falsely accuse her if she was stretching her legs or something. The plan isn’t fully airtight.
Alright, still. Let me gather some furniture, and block off this hallway a bit. Aloud I ask, “Are you two game to stick together and check each dorm? If you don’t personally have a telepathic link with any person you see, but you know they have one set up, telepathically ask me for a password to give them to say aloud to you.”
The pair of friends nod, and aid me in quickly gathering some furniture so that I can block the rest of the hallway with my body. I also place my telekinetic squares strategically to catch anyone that might think they might be able to slip through openings if they’re invisible, and perhaps stretchy. Rattling my skull, I watch as Illy and Prinny go room by room down this hallway that has two intersections up ahead, and a lot of doorways, many of which lead to rooms used by Order members past.
It’s nerve wracking, seeing them checking room by room. Wearing my goggles, I check to make sure I don’t see any pairs of goggles that might be stolen, or moving erratically. Thankfully, there aren’t any. There are however strange blurs that move slowly in some of the hallway cameras. Well, one. It’s vaguely reminiscent of—. My stealth form! My chromatophores and iridophores! Crap, I’m almost sure that the impostor is already leaving Mount Solace, or looking for a spot far enough from the scene of the crime to assume a new form and return to infiltrating.
Telepathically I send to everyone that can hear me, “Shapechanging impostor with a Latent that lets them maybe take any form almost instantly, and quite likely appearing near-invisible is on the loose. Likely suspected to be one of the Evil Claws, extremely dangerous! Verify your telepathic connections with everyone you see if you have one. Security team, see that blur moving from, frick, it should be on the next camera in a few seconds. Sorry, sensor. Or, if anyone begins walking on that sensor suddenly, the shifter has changed. The one that faces intersection 221B. There, in the derby cap!”
Prinny and Illy start rushing back to me, and I take off with all haste towards the exit that the posh gentleman is meandering to at a leisurely pace. When Pawn confronts him on camera though, the two stumble off camera for a second, and now there are two Pawns on the next camera. You have *got* to be kidding me! This cliché isn’t going to work on people who are telepathic with each other ar$eho13!
Half of the Order of the Onyx Dawn closes in on the location, surprising the hell out of our guest who isn’t yet aware of our new security system. They arrived just last night after all, so their info has to be at least two or three days old at the minimum. When the two begin arguing that they’re the real Pawn, I just think a telepathic message to the actual Pawn linked to all of our mental networks to flip me off.
Shouting quickly, “There, bird flipper is the real Pawn. *Kill* the other!”
The fake’s eyes fly wide and she begins to bolt. I hate to admit it, but she’s agile, and maybe almost as fast as Pawn. While several of us just barely manage to nick her, or scrape her flesh, she makes it past us, towards the exit, as we’re too cautious, not wanting to hit one another in crossfires with breaths or abilities. I can’t manage to snag her in a grip with my telekinesis, and the one telekinetic grip that gets remotely close to snagging her shatters instantly, sending a shearing pain through my skull. Groaning, I rattle my skull, reassessing. My allies are in a jumble next to me, but the fake Pawn is fleeing, far down the tunnel leading out of Mount Solace.
Since she’s now far out of reach of being in any sort of crossfire, I loose a long blast of lightning, scarring the hell out of my throat, filling the entire hallway towards the foothills. Making it so large dilutes its power vastly, but I do manage to nick the fleeing villain. It’s too bad I lack the fine control I’d had on Can’Z’aas, or even just in my most recent body prior to dying. I’d have dropped a time-delayed spark into that connection to destroy her heart and insides.
Growling out commands, I bark, “Adamantite or orichalcum gate, main door, commission, stoneshaping and Teuila to get it into place. No one without telepathy leaves Solace. Anyone trying to get in, if they can’t respond to telepathy, are a fake. Goggles. Everyone. Now. Do *not* lose them! Security center, keep an eye on everyone’s sensors, if you see a blur that they don’t seem to notice, patch in and warn them immediately. Lil, glad you’re here. Take a long friggin’ breath buddy, because I need you filling this hallway with fire until we’re done with the door.”
Heaving with exhaustion from the rapid adrenaline rushes, I begin to crash. I barely sustained my sanity through that. There were too many allies for me to whip out my area of effect abilities, and even at my best I’m not accurate enough with most of my single target ones to hit someone that quick. I’m definitely not at my best. I’d have hit my friends, my family. I need to get new telepathic bonds on all the Spellknights, and all the new family members like Atter and Shiz and Pidge. I rapidly scratch my scalp and the base of my horns like an addict fiending for a hit. Plans, plans, so many plans. Huff, huff.
When friends and family tell me to calm down, the crazy-eyed glare I give them speaks volumes about how that won’t be happening any time soon. No bastard will ever do that to anyone else, ever. No one should have to suffer what I just went through. Huff, huff. First thing’s first, check in with Leeza, possibly Charles, and Deli and Yerj if they’re in as well. Commission the gate in two stages. A quick, first layer, to relieve Lil, basically just welded sheetmetal, then an actual full gate.