Rhythms, loops, repetitions. They were inevitable, and nothing proved this more than my current situation. On most days, I would wake up, be annoyed by Liz, and if it was an odd day, I’d go to the tavern to relax with the revolutionaries, as I called them. If it was an even day, I’d help Liz and Eva with their theological stuff, but only in the background. I didn’t want to be seen arguing for the church of change in anything but the most academic of spaces, as to not let the populace see me, and for the revolutionaries to find out who I really was.

It was actually pretty rare for me and anyone else in the group to spend time with each other, especially since I had to go train with Charlotte every three days, which squeezed my schedule even more. All that to say, I needed some space to breathe. I needed to break out of the rhythms of life yet again, out of my own volition this time.

I woke up, again. I was being hugged way too tightly, again. I shook her awake, again. We made small talk, again. I walked to the kitchen and made breakfast for her exclusively, again. Wait, I wasn’t breaking out of my rhythm at all!

“Are you alright?” Asked Liz, as if she actually cared. She was getting more and more convincing every day. Her edges smoothed out, and only came back only when someone else was interacting with her.

“I’m fine.” I didn’t dignify her by giving her a further response. Then, I realised something. The loop had broken all on its own. Alex hadn’t woken up to annoy me and Liz by insulting me. “Do you know where Alex is?”

“Oh, he left for the dungeon in the city centre.” Was… was he stupid? On his own? Oh no, he’s trying to prove himself. God no, what the hell had Liz done? Insulting him was not what she should’ve done. It only made him want to prove that he wasn’t boring.

“Shit! He’ll die!” Alex wasn’t particularly strong, as he was a tank that focused on making enemies focus on him, and then on dodging the attacks they’d dish out. He could move around like nobody else, but hit like a wet noodle and could take a couple attacks at most. I only found that out from Samoylo, as Liz had shook off any kind of combat or adventuring as a group in favour of her stupid church.

“So what? That just means he’s out of the way–” I had pulled myself out of my chair, heading towards the part of the wall that teleported me out of this dimension if I stared at it. “Where do you think you’re going?” She teleported in front of me, and pushed me right back into the chair with a shove. “Did I give you permission to be a hero?” Did she really want to try this? I put my right leg on the table, then jumped above her to hit the ceiling then back to the ground to reach the wall.

“Do you think I need it?” I teleported right after the final word, and rushed towards the big pillar of light that held the dungeon inside it. I could not navigate the city, but the giant pillar was not hard to see. I ran and ran, expecting Liz to teleport behind me at any moment, but that just didn’t happen.

“Yes it did.” My robe collar! She had grabbed it and basically strangled me. She pulled me right back, then pushed on both sides of my neck with her fingers to send searing pain through my whole body. She did it for a couple seconds, expecting me to collapse. When I didn’t, I could notice her, for the tiniest of seconds, teleporting away and right back. “You’re lucky I’m far too kind to use that mark for such a trivial mistake on your part.”

“Just let me help him–”

“That’s what I was about to do. You just forgot your sword.” She put it in my hand, and vanished… What the hell? Since when was I allowed to do stuff without her directly knowing about it? It didn’t matter either way. I was now free, and started running towards the pillar again. If I had to give my best guess to what she was doing, it was probably guilt tripping or love bombing. If she gave me some leeway, and I didn’t reward her back by acting like I actually loved her, she would have a ‘justifiable’ reason to get angry. Either that, or she was trying to make me used to her lenient side, so I’d do anything to get it back when she inevitably went back to her true self. I saw two guards on the checkpoint leading to the tower.

“Hey! Slow down!” One of them said before I smashed through the door. “There’s somebody already inside!” Yea, that’s why I was going in it. I shouldn’t have blamed them in my mind, they couldn’t have known, but our minds are things that we can’t easily control. I ran right at the big pillar, and was teleported through. I hadn’t been in it that many times, so was startled when I nearly slipped on the wet bricks lining the floor. The dungeon was very usual, with its hosting rooms made completely out of brick. This one, however, had some moss on the walls, which made it pretty special compared to the other ones.

Alex’s steps were easy to follow, as the grime cleared away where he stepped, oh, and the dead hoards of bats also made it obvious where he had been going. I ran through room after room, noticing how the marks got more and more clear, either from his exhaustion weighing him down, or from them being far newer. Then, I finally saw a hoard of bats that wasn’t dead, and a blur of light picking them off one by one.

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“Steer clear if you don’t wanna die!” I said before seeing the light back off, letting me throw my sword at the hoard while it was spinning vertically. It turned damn near every last one into mince meat, earning me barely any XP. I moved to grab my sword back, and instinctually ducked as the blur moved to get me. “Alex, don’t do something you’ll regret.” I grabbed my sword.

“You know what? I’ll give you some credit, you have some balls to come to ME in a dungeon. Don’t you know how easy it is to get away with a murder here?” Oh, that was Liz’s masterplan. If I wasn’t going to give up on saving Alex, she would just make me kill him. She knew Alex was unreasonable, and that I believed in him far too much by not realising he’d use this opportunity to try and kill me. “You come here, take Elizabetha away, and think you can stop me from improving myself?” What?

“What are you talking about?” I probably forgot about something she told him, maybe about being boring if he sees doing something this stupidly dangerous as ‘improving himself’. The normal enemies probably wouldn’t pose that much of a threat to him, but the final boss would. In dungeons with lots of enemies, the final bosses were normally summoners, and there was a good chance that he simply couldn’t kill as many bats as he needed to just to keep up with the summoner.

“You damn well know! You’re just sooooo fucking smart, so figure it out.” Oh, yea, I almost forgot Liz told him that. “But you fucking can’t! You useless bitch!” He really liked to swear, didn’t he? “Let me help beat the fucking knowledge into you!” Why the hell was he using his flight ability on me? He knew that he could only get out of here if he beat the boss, right?

“Calm down–” Oh, he was fast. Really fast. I saw him in front of me one second, and then felt his fist impacting my stomach the next, tearing through the soft fabric of my robe like it wasn’t even there. I jumped back a little, and knew he’d be right behind me, trying to bounce me back and forth. I swung my sword back, hitting the ground, then whipping around again to cover my back again. I saw him for a brief second again, going for my left, and jumped in that direction on purpose, messing with his positioning.

It… didn’t work.

“Dumbass!” He punched me just as well as before. It seemed like his reaction time was also raised by his powers. Either that or he was using several abilities to become stronger, which would make sense since his attacks actually hurt. I flew directly into the wall, picked myself up, and focused fully. From what I remembered from Charlotte’s training, after images were less accurate than physical marks on the world, like a plume of dust, or in his case, the constantly shedding feathers of his temporary wings. I blocked a hit from the right with the blunt side of my sword, and actually had enough time to knee him away.

“Please just stop, Alex. She wants this. She wants us to fight.” I could see his eyes bounce around on their own for a second as he flew away, which must’ve meant his pain tolerance was low enough to make him black out easily. All I needed was a good slash and he would be out cold.

“If that’s what she wants, that’s what she deserves!” A willing slave to the end. He flew straight on at me, as shown by the massive shockwave of water appearing exactly where he jumped from. I pointed my blade straight at him, then moved it to the left, which would be the most likely direction for him to pick thanks to him bluffing that he’ll go in the same direction as last time, as to hit him while flying. The moment I felt my blade hit skin, I knew I got him. He was rolling on the floor, but slid right back, forcing me to use my free hand to predict where his neck would land, and putting up there to force him into a choke.

“Are you done now?” He was– I was about to say that he was stuck, but he just raised himself and kicked me in the stomach with both legs. “I guess that answers that. Snap out of it Alex, she’s planned this from the start. You would never have gotten her to like you.” He stopped right before he was about to hit me in the neck, my words working to stop him.

“Easy for you to say! You don’t fucking try and she’s treating you like the guy of her dreams! You literally hate her so fucking much but she ignores me in favour of you! I don’t hate her, so I’m taking my loss a lot worse than you!” He pointed directly at my face.

“Because she’s cruel. There is no grand plan, no test. She literally just sees you as being between her and her new toy, and as such, in need of punishment.” He just stood there, only responding after swallowing.

“That isn’t true. She… she can’t be that. She was nice once. I remember those times. She…” He stopped, and I instantly recognised what tactic she used on him. She was using cult tactics on him. First, love bombing, then starving him, and now getting him to do anything for even a shred of recognition from her. “I… I just want her back. And you’re in my way! All those words you say, they’re just distractions! You’re just distracting me to waste the time I have left to use my wings!” Wait– I barely managed to grab both of his hands to stop him from doing anything rash.

“You’re either listening to me, or I’m tearing off those wings.” He head butted me. Well, he can’t blame me for what’s going to happen next.