Tension oozed through the cave air. Zoe stood so close to Oriz that she could feel her breath. Their heartbeats pounded in sync, eyes locked, until Bella stepped between them.

Oriz’s eyes slid to her.

The Australian woman never looked so young as she stood between them. She trembled, her lips tight, face pale.

“If you don’t apologize I…” she straightened. “I won’t let you through the portal.”

Oriz’s eyes narrowed.

Through [Our Heart’s Toll as One], Zoe felt Oriz’s heartbeat skyrocket. No matter how unfazed she appeared, Zoe knew the woman was an inch from violence.

But, horribly, Zoe hoped she didn’t apologize. Ugly feelings bubbled up through her heart. Feelings long buried. This time, there was no voice to whisper about friendship, and the chains of love, there was only her, her reflection, and the howling pack in her blood.

Any fight between them would be terrible, but Zoe felt she could take her.

Knew she could win.

And she needed to prove it to herself and to her friends. Nobody would hurt them when she was around.

As though the air wasn’t boiling, Oriz smiled and took a step backward from them all. She bowed toward Skidmark.

“I’m sorry that I almost killed you,” she said.

Skidmark glowered at the contrite woman.

“I’m not going to say it’s alright.”

“Indeed, you shouldn’t,” Oriz said as she straightened up. “It was wrong of me.”

Bella struggled to mask her conflicted anger. She placed a hand on Oriz’s shoulder and leaned in close.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she whispered.

Oriz nodded, the smile still fixed on her face. Zoe heard her heart calming. A look of acceptance passed across Oriz’s face.

Her body exploded into wisps of grass.

Bella stumbled back.

“Wha—?”

Grass wisps burst behind Skidmark. They landed on her skin, and her eyes widened as she tried to turn. Oriz appeared behind her with a grass dagger in her hand. Her face was stony as she swept the blade toward the Scottish woman’s neck.

“No!” Bella shouted as she reached for her runeblade.

The grass blade nicked Skidmark’s neck, but Zoe moved. In a blink, she charged into Skidmark and shunted her out of the way. The grass dagger struck her Mirrored skin and shattered. Zoe grunted at the force of the blade.

Oriz’s smile grew.

“Did you think you could take her from me?”

Zoe growled and reached through [Our Hearts Toll as One]. Oriz’s heart plummeted, and the alien’s face paled. Zoe kept squeezing, the connection like a bundle of barbed wire in her hands as Oriz fought to keep her heart beating.

Their Wills clashed and blood raged as the air spat and seethed around them.

Oriz staggered back, her yellow eyes glowing like sulfurous fire before she severed the connection with a pained scream.

[A member has left your party]

The notification was justification enough, and Zoe stopped holding back. Mirror uncoiled from her hands and spun out in long chains toward Oriz.

The alien assassin danced backward. Her movement was as rapid and erratic as a blade of grass in a hurricane. Zoe’s twin chains missed again and again, but Zoe split the chains into four, and from four into eight. The Mirror poured off her body and into the chains completely as she wielded sixteen. They flailed in a serpentine net as Oriz skipped backward.

The refugees shouted at the growing conflict. They ran away, and even the flaming child toddled away, the warm light retreating as Oriz led Zoe deeper into the cavern.

Zoe’s chains thrashed and cracked like demonic whips. Wherever they struck the ground, ripples of sound rang out and the ground broke apart into portals. Oriz avoided them, and Zoe chased forward.

The alien's cool demeanor twisted as a derisive laugh escaped her lips.

“Even with all your power and all your stats, you’re no match for someone who has gone beyond level 50!”

Zoe’s Mirror was gone, but the words bounced off her. There was nothing Oriz could say at this point that would stop what was coming. And the freedom of not caring was a beautiful thing. She moved with that grace, unburdened, every point of Might propelled her like a cannonball.

She sidestepped flung grass daggers. The blades hit the ground, grew roots, and extended toward Zoe. She wrapped chains around her fist and stepped into a mid-air portal.

The feeling of smooth velvet as she slipped through space and emerged behind her former mentor.

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Oriz gasped and whirled. A long blade grew from her hand as she sliced through the air. Zoe’s fist caught the alien in the chin. A bell tolled through the cave. The onlookers clapped their hands to their ears as the sound rushed through space. Falling raindrops shattered as the sound expanded out. Oriz flew into the far wall hundreds of feet away. Rock exploded. A huge crack ran up the length of the wall, but Oriz clutched the wall like a spider.

Blood dripped from her lips as she stared at Zoe with cold eyes.

“I suppose you’ve been waiting for this,” she said.

Zoe said nothing as she met the stare across the distance. Anton’s silver eyes hovered out to fill the space between them. His chrome light eroded the darkness.

“I’ve got you covered, boss,” he said as one of his eyes floated by her shoulder.

She nodded.

“Keep an eye on Bella.”

“You think —”

“Keep Bella safe,” Zoe corrected.

As a surgeon, she mostly dealt with patients under anesthesia, but she knew all too well what someone could do when pushed to their breaking point. Hospitals were never peaceful, especially when someone unstable was thinking about their loved ones.

She charged.

Rock shattered with each stride as she closed the distance. She gripped a Chroma Viscera Core in one hand. The jewel shone as she summoned her hounds. She frowned, her blood surging as she focused, and the beasts leaped from her body coated in metal. Their claws scraped the rock as they howled.

Oriz dropped from the wall, and Zoe already recognized the stance she had taken.

“Zoe!” Anton called. “Look out!”

Rainbow light glowed as Oriz stepped forward into her perfect cut. Light splashed across the cavern as the boss killing attack raced toward her.

[Empress in Time]

Zoe gripped the attack and held it in place. The energy hung there like a captured rainbow. It glowed, fighting against the pressure of time as Zoe leaped. She swung her chains, and they flowed together into a single flail. A bell on the end heavier than her head.

The bell struck the suspended blade.

Another toll like God’s fist rapping on Doomsday’s door.

The rainbow attack shattered in an explosion that sent Zoe flying backward. She hit the rocky ground hard and bounced before sliding to a stop. With a grunt, she pulled herself to her feet.

Oriz was busy with her hounds.

The metal beasts harried her as she ran along the cave’s perimeter. Oriz leaped from stalagmite to stalactite, and the pursuing hounds charged through the rocks. They weren’t fast enough, or strong enough, to take Oriz down on their own. Whenever the alien got a moment, she turned and flicked a grass blade toward them. Though metal should be stronger, the blades sank through their skulls. One by one her hounds slumped to the ground and dissolved.

Zoe felt each hound like a hammer against her heart, but they served their purpose bringing Oriz back toward Zoe.

Oriz spun in the air. She slashed down at the only hound remaining — snow-white Barkly. Before the blow could land, Zoe crushed the dog’s heart with her technique. With a wrench of metal, the hound vanished, and in that echoing screech, a portal appeared.

Zoe stepped through. Oriz’s eyes widened as she tried to adjust her swing, but Zoe stepped past in the perfect form of the Grasping Vine and swung a hook into the alien’s jaw.

Oriz burst into grass.

She appeared behind Zoe, swinging a blade, but Zoe stepped back through her portal. Her mind raced as she appeared back on the other side. The smell of cut grass stabbed her nose, and she ducked as another dagger swept for her throat. The two women pushed each other, teleporting, using portals, vanishing, and appearing throughout the cave as they battled to get that one hit on the other.

Though Oriz lacked Might, her high Dexterity let her move in the blink of an eye. This coupled with her teleporting grass technique allowed her to land a barrage of hits on Zoe.

Zoe’s Mirrored armor reflected the blows and forced Oriz away, but it drained her Skein, and the alien woman was always quick to respond. Zoe pulled her chains back, keeping the armor on her skin. She pushed herself to her limit to keep up. Her armor slowed her down slightly, but she couldn’t afford to drop the Mirror.

Oriz was too fast.

A knee connected with Zoe’s ribs. Even through her armor, Zoe felt the crunch of broken ribs. She lashed out, but Oriz leaped away from the follow-up strike.

With a grin, Zoe raised her hands above her head. A heavy bell formed. She slammed it down onto the ground. A cacophonic harmony shook the cave, and Zoe grasped that vibration. With an exertion of Skein that tugged at her soul, she collapsed the cave floor.

Oriz fell into the sudden abyss and Zoe dove after.

They tumbled through the darkness as Anton’s silver eyes raced to follow. Zoe caught a hold of Oriz. Skein bubbled beneath the alien’s skin, but Zoe destabilized the vibration and canceled the technique. It was an application of her body path she wasn’t sure would work, and from Oriz’s enraged expression — neither had her mentor.

They slammed down onto crystal spires with a sound like shattering glass. Shockwaves fed through Zoe and empowered her next strike. She gripped Oriz’s throat with one hand and lifted her from the ground. Oriz thrust a grass dagger into Zoe’s side over and over. Blood oozed between the punctured mirror, but Zoe ignored the pain as she drew back her fist.

[The Bell at the Center of the World]

Reality peeled around her, Oriz stretched into the curve of a bell, and Zoe rang the world with all her might. The blow caught her in the temple and sent her flying back up the hole she created. Anton’s silver eyes lit up the chasm they fell into — a cave of crystal spikes and spires that reflected his light a thousandfold as though they were inside a colossal geode. Oriz flew up limp as a rag doll. She reached the zenith of her arc, turned over in the air, and hit the ground back in the cavern. Her body bounced, rolled, and came to a stop.

With the last of her strength, Zoe leaped back into the cavern. Her entire body ached as she heaved for air.

“Anton…” she gasped. “Check her.”

One of Anton’s eyes floated down over Oriz.

“I think she’s unconscious.”

Zoe nodded and limped over.

“Keep Bella away for the moment.”

Blood poured from her wound, but Mirror flowed to plug the injury. It hurt to breathe and to stand. Her whole body felt battered and exhausted after the fight, but there were no injuries she couldn’t walk away from. Oriz lay still amongst shattered rock, and Zoe bent down to check her vitals.

Oriz struck like a snake hidden in the grass. Her open palm struck Zoe’s forehead. Grass wrapped around Zoe’s face. She leaped back, creating as much distance as possible while the technique wrapped around her body.

Skein coated her eyes, dug into her skin, and she felt a slumber leak from her bones. So tired… a green sun rose over green hills…

She staggered as her vision showed a different world than the one underfoot.

Moth beats raged against her heart.

No!

Mirrored fingers tore apart the grass and Zoe gasped for air. Moth stood over her, formed of Mirror and hollow, a single strand connecting her to Zoe as she looked down with a face of concern.

Silence met Zoe as she stood. The last shreds of the cocoon withered on the ground with a sound like hissing fat.

“Where is she?” she called.

Anton’s eyes whizzed about the cave.

“I can’t see her!”

Zoe looked around as tired Mirror crawled over her skin. She raised her fists, but no attack came. Could Oriz delay her teleportation technique? If so, then she could be anywhere. Zoe spun, her nerves on edge as she waited for her former mentor’s reappearance.

[Our Hearts Toll as One] spiked. Her friends' heartbeats leaped and Zoe charged toward them before she even saw what happened.

“Boss!” Anton called.

Lightning arced brighter than the sun. Eerie shadows stretched flat across the cave walls. Wisps of grass floated through the electrified air as Oriz — bright madness in her yellow eyes — appeared behind Bella.

No, no, no!

The ground shattered under Zoe’s feet as she closed the distance. Blood burst from her stab wounds. She gritted her teeth against the pain. With every step, she hoped she wasn’t too late.