So much can change in five minutes. Five minutes forward, or five minutes back…
Lives come and go….
They sat behind the counter. Zoe stood, mirror draping her skin, and walked out to stand before the sliding doors. They opened and displayed the gas pumps and snow-covered highway. What mechanism was it that recreated the convenience of pre-apocalypse days? Was it muscles and tendons pulling the door into the walls like a cat’s claws slipping back into a sheathe?
The sniper’s shot cracked out like the wrong footstep on a frozen lake. Zoe stared forward as the bullet struck her mirrored chest. She exhaled as the crumpled metal fell to the floor and remained still to ensure the reflected energy went right back to its target. Mirrored force lanced into a tree. No body fell, but she had to hope no more shots came.
Her reflected force had been unexpected in the last timeline, after all.
“Anton,” she said. “Tell me when they advanced toward us”
“Got it,” Anton said from an eye floating beside her. “What are you planning?”
“Do you see them?”
“No… yes. Six men are coming out of the trees. They have axes and pistols. Um, Zoe? Neither of us can defend against bullets.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Zoe…” Bella sounded like she wanted to be sick. “How many times have you traveled through time?”
The smell of a burning world still haunted Zoe’s nostrils.
“Enough. I know what I’m doing.”
“What are you planning?”
If she told them, then the demon surrounding them would know. Zoe couldn’t risk it informing its minions.
“A way for us to survive.”
“They’re close,” Anton said. “I see crows… the crows just formed into a man. He looks like the leader.”
Zoe took a deep breath and settled herself. She fought sloppily before. Fought with rage, hunger, and arrogance that got her friends killed.
She needed precision. Even a butcher must work in the spaces between bones. Nobody who hacks can preserve their knives. She was a surgeon. If she couldn’t be precise, then what did that say about her?
“Let me handle this.”
Zoe dropped 20 points into Dexterity. The cold rush like diving into mountain water blued her scarred lips.
[Dexterity 45 (+20)]
She hadn’t been sure about allocating points like this — some old habit of hoarding resurfacing — but if she wanted accuracy, she needed Dexterity.
Her body weight shifted as she adjusted minor inconsistencies between her stance and the position of the Grasping Vine
“Zoe…” Bella steeled herself. “I trust you.”
“Thank you.”
But if everything went according to the plan she made with Oriz… this would be over in moments.
The doors slid open, and Zoe stood without the mirrored armor of [Self Reflects the World] as the six men marched into the room. They adopted the same positions as last time. The man with the snake skull mask and the cloak of crow feathers stood at the front, behind him stood the three men with pistols, and behind them the two with axes.
Any second now, he would order them to shoot her.
She activated the python bracelet.
Threads and veins of Skein blossomed and pulsed. Falsehoods peeled away. The concrete, the shelves, the junk food, and the cigarettes were all real, but now she saw the black feathered flesh coiled around it. Loop after loop of a thick sinuous serpent wrapped like roots around every aspect of the building, and hidden amongst the folded coils were wide yellow eyes.
Eyes that watched her.
She made sure not to acknowledge their presence.
“You’re strong,” she said to the leader. “I want to join you.”
He cocked his head in surprise. The python bracelet peeled away the shadows of his mask and revealed a forked tongue that tasted the air. Tasted her truth.
She knew he was strong, especially with that pulsing link inside his chest — below his heart — the demonic conduit that granted him limitless Skein. He knew he was strong.
But did he believe her?
“We already have a full squad of seven,” he said. “Though someone of your features could be a fine addition if you show proper humility.”
Zoe knelt.
“I need strong companions if I’m going to survive.”
The leader turned back to look at his men, who were all grinning.
Zoe struck.
[Mind’s Eye Incision]
The scalpel of ethereal metal flowed into her hands. Longer than before, it sat snug in her grip. As she reached out toward the leader, his back still turned, she recalled the first time the scalpel felt like an extension of herself.
Removing a tumor from a middle-aged woman who looked liked her mother.
She supposed it wasn’t too different now, just cutting out another tumor.
The leader’s chest was twisted, and she sliced between his ribs and extended the blade to sever the glowing demonic conduit. The scalpel passed like a hot knife through butter. The leader turned, hissing, swinging Trinch’s thighbone with a mad fury.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Zoe’s Blackstar chain wrapped around his arm and dragged it off course. She used the momentum to launch herself at his goons. Her scalpel swung out. These men were weaker. Their flesh was less resistant to her Skein-based technique.
Guns raised as she stabbed one chest, another.
Anton’s silver eyes flashed into the faces of the goons. His screams echoed out from each eye. A cacophony of distraction condensed into a magical flashbang.
[Self Reflects the World]
A gunshot deafened all. The bullet struck her mirrored skin. Force reflected off her chest and blasted the shooter’s forehead. He slumped over as cold energy filled Zoe.
The other five surrounded Zoe but with their demonic conduits rendered useless, they were merely low-level goons.
Rage thrashed inside her heart. Hunger twitched her scarred lips. But she could not succumb. Precision was the antidote to the poison of arrogance. She must fight with the skill that she has and leverage her abilities into an overwhelming advantage, rather than rely upon her reflective ability to shore up her disadvantages.
The leader swung again, and she stepped forward, twisting to avoid the descending attack, her hand striking out toward his neck. Fist collided with the trachea and mirrored knuckles repeated the blow.
He staggered back. Gasping. Her chains lashed out and struck the men surrounding her. The metal links struck their faces and staggered them back as the chain retreated around her fist like brutal knuckle dusters. She punched the closest. His face caved around her fist before he flew away into a shelf of jerky and nuts.
Cold energy flowed up her hand. Such an intoxicating rush.
An axe swished toward her, and she stepped out of the way. Her chain wrapped around the guns and yanked them toward her, snapping a wrist and knocking the other gunman to his knees.
The disarmed gunmen put up their hands, kneeling, pleading to live. The axeman looked indecisive but swung again. She sidestepped, her chain wrapping around his arm to hold him in place as she drew back her fist.
But the leader charged. He was still burning his Skein — the self-destructive enhancement obvious to her python charm vision — his body wreathed in flames — and the club came at her like a speeding car. It would shatter her mirrored armor if she let the land blow.
So she spun, a tight grip on her desire to charge herself, and presented the axe-wielding goon as a shield.
Bone club met camo-draped flesh. The goon exploded like a warm bag of chitlings.
Someone screamed.
Gore bounced off Zoe’s mirrored skin.
The leader hissed and exploded into crows and a growing cloud of smoke.
“Bella,” Zoe ordered. “Aura.”
Bella stood behind the counter. She thrust out her runeblade and the caustic aura rushed into the room. Linoleum bubbled. Plastic wrappers melted. The kneeling men fell and writhed as it rushed over their skin.
The crows screeched.
They condensed on top of the counter. The leader lifted the club to strike down at Bella, but Zoe’s chain wrapped around his neck. With all her Might, she heaved him backward.
He flew. Graceless. Shocked. She saw his technique pulse, ready to disperse his flesh into crows.
But he was out of Skein.
He hit the ground hard. Zoe raised her foot above his face. He screamed. She stomped.
The cold rush of death energy flowed up through her leg, and the battle was over.
###
Zoe set Bella to guard the two surviving goons and keep them face down. She toyed with the idea of tying them up — there were cable ties and ropes on the shelves — but they had nothing strong enough to keep a system-enhanced human bound.
Except her Blackstar chain, but she didn’t want to waste it on that.
As the two men lay there, waiting for whatever may come — one of them cradling his snapped wrist — Zoe returned to the men’s bathroom. A sense of low-grade paranoia told her that the demon continued to glare at her, but without the python charm, she couldn’t see it.
It took only moments to shatter the toilet, and the hidden core.
[You have started the exorcism of the One-Eyed Crow]
[Destroy the remaining demonic cores before the countdown expires. If any cores remain at the end of the countdown, the One-Eyed Crow will respawn]
[Cores remaining: 9/10]
[Time remaining: 9 minutes, 59 seconds]
Oriz had awoken by the time Zoe returned to the entrance.
“What happened?”
Zoe met the yellow-eyed stare of her master. It didn’t feel wrong to think that word. If it weren’t for Oriz’s advice, Zoe wasn’t sure if she could have defeated the demonic bastards so quickly.
She knelt beside the body of the leader.
“We’re inside a demon. I’ve begun the exorcism.”
Oriz looked around and nodded.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“We spoke before, in another timeline.”
“I’m glad you’re listening to me then.”
Zoe smirked as she examined the leader’s corpse. The demonic core throbbed inside his chest. Rage. She could understand the stymied emotion inside — how awful for the demon to see its goons dismantled so quickly?
She couldn’t use her ethereal scalpel for this since it only cut Skein, but a kitchen knife would be sufficient. Especially since she didn’t need to worry about being clean. Two punches shattered the sternum — she felt more satisfaction than was healthy at the way the cowering goons blanched at the sound — and she cut through the remaining flesh. The knife wasn’t medically sharp, but it did the job.
The dark and glittering egg-sized orb burned in her palm like the hot skin of a midnight lover. Passion. Promises. So much power could be —
It shattered in her fist.
[Cores remaining: 8/10]
[Time remaining: 9 minutes, 01 seconds]
“Anton? Please find the orb that rolled free of the exploded goon.”
“Goon?” Anton smirked as he reached under a magazine rack.
“What should I call them?”
“People?” Bella said with a laugh.
One goon nodded.
“We’re sorry about —”
The runeblade poked beside his lips.
“Shut up.”
He nodded, staring at the blade that had left the oozing pockmarks across his skin. Even now the wounds were healing. A reminder that these men were enhanced by the system and not to be underestimated.
Zoe made quick work of the remaining cores. With Oriz’s help, Anton found the ones hidden inside the building. One was under the sink in the kitchen while the other sat inside the manager’s computer. Anton broke them as Zoe cut open corpses.
She knew she should feel something — some horror — about killing people… but at that moment, her remorse was like a broken light switch. These people had killed her, had killed her friends. It was self-defense, and she had no problem with the outcome.
It also wasn’t as though she killed them all. Not yet, anyway…
[Cores remaining: 3/10]
[Time remaining: 3 minutes, 23 seconds]
“Now, what do we do with them?” Zoe pointed at the living goons on the ground. “Is there a way to remove demonic cores without killing them?”
Oriz opened her eyes where she sat against the wall. Even being awake was laborious since the Mirrorbell dungeon drained her energies.
“You’re a surgeon, aren’t you?” She didn’t question Zoe’s decision, for which Zoe was glad. “It’s not tied to anything vital. It should be like removing a growth.”
“Why not kill them?” Anton said as he ate some salted nuts. “They would have done the same to us.”
Bella frowned at Anton but said nothing. She looked at Zoe and shrugged.
Zoe sighed.
It felt wrong to kill these men while they were under her mercy. If she could, she wanted to save them. Her hunger scorned the notion, but she willed herself to override her darker impulse.
But how could she safely remove two cores in only three minutes? And what would she do about the third core that lay beyond the barrier?