Nothing prepares you for an image of one of your worst fears zooming directly into your face. The fear here, of course, was Reed being held captive by the Sapphire Queen. The Queen herself looked more like a demon or ghost than ever: was that a kind of smoke wafting off of her skin, or sheer black energy? Her eyes were glowing silver-white with their own power.
But even though I was screaming with terror on the inside, I soon stifled my scream on the outside. I didn’t need to urge Bayce away—she was already scrambling down the narrow, claustrophobic stairs. She took much of the light with her, but in theory, I’d hardly need it. I just had to follow the plan I’d given myself much earlier.
After all, I had a whole battery of Skills to make me stronger, and strictly speaking, there was no guarantee that my enemy had anything like them. I’d thought about it a little: if an insecty-human had only shown me magic-powder-based abilities, why assume she also had claw-strengthening abilities, supercharged fists, strength boosters, or anything of the kind? Maybe she had no multipliers without her Bug Blade, maybe she only had high Stats across the board—and in that case, if I used enough Guards and Meditates, I could easily compensate.
Besides that, I had a few Spells she might not be expecting. And I’d gotten them from a human companion, something I had many reasons to doubt she had.
One might think the fact that she was currently holding Reed like a human shield threw a wrench in things, and, um…yeah, it kinda did. Reed had appeared before us like an apparition, with one of the Queen’s hands clamped around her mouth and the other crushing her abdomen as it forced her arms behind her back. Shock, fright, but most of all the sheer weariness of having been imprisoned in a place nobody knew—these were all glistening in eyes that had shed tears.
But through the slight haze of my first Meditate, I reminded myself that there were far more ways to hit a foe than head-on, or with blunt force.
My one and only Water Spell was lobbed at the Queen’s face. It stuck there, hovering around her whole head, and she actually stumbled back.
A bullet of water is gone in a flash, but a bubble of it begins to suffocate.
Reed was still in her clutches, though, her grip just as strong.
So I cast an Ice Spell, aiming, as well as I could in this awkward stairwell, for the Queen’s head. It froze over in a twinkling instant, and the crystals, I hoped, were binding her to the floor.
Even if they weren’t, the loss of consciousness should weaken her grip.
And that it did. Reed muscled out of the Queen’s clutches and rose sitting on her shins. After a couple of deep but panicky breaths, she jumped to her feet and whirled around. A flashing blade, furious with pink energy, was jammed straight into our enemy’s chest.
Before I could second-guess all this and wonder if a death sentence was too much, it all warped away.
Reed, the Queen, the blade…everything but the ice, gone the same way they’d appeared.
Y’know, there was a very real possibility the Queen only had one Skill and could only use that ad nauseam. Or there was until shortly after the disappearance, she started disproving the notion.
A wraith and a familiar blade appeared behind me, but I was no longer so afraid of that. She’d given me more than enough time to use, um, about five Guards.
The thing ate into my skin—I’d held up my forearms in an X. For the first time, I felt the full force of a blow from her weapon, the pressure of her entire body forcing that blade into me.
DEF 389 (+200%)
HP 4% (33/855)
I cried out, lost my footing, and toppled onto the stairs. My Health was miserably low, and the cuts in my arms were nasty, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t feel as bad as I was letting on. I howled and rolled over, signs of surrender.
Really, though, rolling onto my stomach and crushing my arms helped me disguise the healing of those wounds when I used my Minor Heals—and the arching of my back hid the puffs of Spell-smoke.
HP 74% (633/855) SP 67% (550/820)
This didn’t count as a bad position. Whatever the Queen was doing, she wasn’t attacking me just yet, so I kept yowling like my life depended on it while I piled on more Guards.
SP 45% (370/820)
DEF 611 (+450%)
Mid-yowl, I rolled back to my feet, and realized that I now had much easier terrain to work with.
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I would’ve checked the location with my Map if not for this being pitched combat. It certainly wasn’t a room I’d been in before. The ground was tile, and a few meters ahead was a basin with what had to be the most rank and frigid water imaginable. Gentle light streamed in from a skylight, but whatever it was, it didn’t look like pure sunlight.
Between me and the water was the Queen clearly and inconveniently activating Skills that weren’t related to the powder. Black aura steamed around her, white eyes blaring like headlights. Glowing strands like the thinnest-possible antennae arced upward from her head. From her elbows extended two rough-edged weapons—natural blades, like parts of her.
This didn’t scare me anymore. It made me impossibly anxious, yes, but somehow it did not scare me. I feared death, still, and I definitely preferred not to suffer pain and dying, and yet it was all—more familiar. The Queen, too. Reading her diary had made her less intimidating, if still mysterious. Having a plan of my own did even more. I hadn’t even touched the sword I’d expected to rely on yet, and I dared to wonder if I’d need it. After all, if the swords counteracted each other…she had my weakness just as much as I had hers. And she had yet to draw her own cheat-code sword.
The Queen charged forward with one armblade back, coming in for a stab. Just before I rolled out of the way, I used Cloak.
SP 23% (190/820)
Now my goal was to disrupt her senses about the same way she had mine—relying on my Speed, springiness, and generally chaotic mind, trusting that I could weave a path she could hardly follow.
Mid-jump, I launched a Fire Spell in her face. She swatted it away. Skidding and rolling, I aimed ice at her feet and ankles. Her aura actually blew them apart. The Queen was moving cautiously, arms up, mainly tracking my moves with her eyes. It was a good sign, one suggesting that if I tricked her eyes, I might have her.
The seconds on Cloak ticked down. My thoughts were frenetic, throwing every ingredient they had together. I crossed to one end of the rectangular pool. Not a huge pool, and not a huge room, so it didn’t take me long. By now, the Queen had started lobbing experimental shards of aura around—things that looked a lot like my Air Cutters, but came straight from the energy surrounding her. None of these hit me, but they did keep me alert and dodging.
Suddenly she came off her feet. Pulled like a rag doll, she was moved toward me, across the pool, by an Attraction Spell. When she was about halfway, I threw another Spell while standing still—a giveaway for my location, but in a moment it would cease to matter.
The High-Gravity Spell I threw next had her plunge like a bullet into the water. Would she break as she hit the tile at the bottom? I wasn’t going to check. Next I launched a Lightning Spell.
For an eye-searing moment, the whole pool lit up in a splendid flash. I had no idea what specifically was going on here, but lightning in water was supposed to be bad. Evidently, it was blazing through every bit of that water.
It’d hardly worn off when I launched an Ice Spell—again, not really aiming, just hitting the water itself. It acted just as I’d hoped: in a single second, it froze an enormous lump right in the center, its crystals reaching down lower and lower, consuming all they found. Wow, I’d fully expected the Lightning to wreak havoc on this whole body of water, but knowing Ice could be this powerful in water was a nice surprise.
Knowing her, she’d probably just warp out of the ice right after all this anyway, but I was content with what I’d done. This was almost like seeing an overly complicated art project come together.
Near-silence followed. Already some of the taller ice crystals at the top of the cluster were beginning to drip, and they echoed in this…pool room. The tiles said “pool” to me, but maybe also “bathhouse.” And the skylight, I could see, produced a cold steady light whose color reminded me of the cabin refrigerator.
I didn’t dare to open my Map yet, in case I’d suddenly and desperately need my eyes. But I did notice two figures sitting in a recess in the opposite wall…
Cloak wore off. So did the power of the Ice Spell, because yes indeed, the Queen was now standing on top of the remaining ice, as if she’d been standing there all along. Vague metallic glimmers on its surface told the story.
Without hesitation, I activated an Attraction Spell and used the last of my SP on a Slash.
We’re all organic creatures, you know…even those of us who are weird hybrids, unsure who we are in the animal kingdom. Everyone organic has a jugular vein! Everyone needs to breathe!
Fascinatingly, I could use Attraction to target a specific body part, just as long as it was clear in my eyesight or in my mind.
She careened toward me. Not as bonelessly as last time, because she must’ve known what was coming. Well, she could brace herself all she wanted, but she couldn’t exactly make her neck do…
Okay, what was this? My claws wouldn’t even go in. A buring, red-aura’d critical hit with my strongest offensive move was only bruising her.
Those two people watching from the alcove were seeing a strange sight: a calico cat repeatedly jabbing her claws into a person lying on her side who, thanks to the bracer-like shapes of her arms and the aura billowing around her, looked like a hulking behemoth.
“You know,” a suspiciously Bayce-like voice called out, “there are more stairs over there, and Reed’s right here. So if you could just finish fighting…”
The Queen flashed to her feet. An echoing stomp, one amplified by the ethereal gasping roar of her aura itself, filled the room, and her steely eyes squinted toward Bayce.
I looked toward Bayce too. She and Reed were poking their heads out from the alcove now, just sort of…watching. They’d been there the entire time, hadn’t they?
It relieved me a bit to know they hadn’t gotten involved in the fighting, not since Reed tried to stab her through the chest. As noble as that was, if she’d done that and the Queen had retaliated…I couldn’t have forgiven myself.
A message, one from the System but not, popped into my vision. Oh yeah, I thought, she can say things. Kind of.
Yeah fine, that human has a point
Even unarmed, you’re beyond good
You will do just fine.
Let’s go have tea
I smiled at her. Being in my cat form, my smile was just like all my other expressions: highly suspect. You’ve never been more stabbable than in this moment, I thought.