-- Aster --

"Wha...How?!" I stared in disbelief at Cane. 'How in decay could he be here, and why does he look ready for war. Is he here to help us?' I was completely lost, and all words failed me, as I stared dumbly at Cane.

Cane smiled. "You did well Aster."

I said the only thing I could think of. "How the fuck are you here?!"

"Bit of this bit of that." Cane said nonchalantly.

"That's not an answer!" I shouted at him.

Cane shrugged. "It's not supposed to be."

I was too confused to care about his flippant attitude. "Are you really Cane?"

"Sadly, I am."

"Well, then. What is going on?"

"You are going through a trial."

"Another one? Is this a keeper thing again?" I rubbed my head. 'I'm here to free them not deal with the keepers again.'

"What?" That made Cane blink. A look of uncertainty crossed over his face. "Not sure what you said their your words seemed to have been filtered."

That confirmed it wasn't a keeper thing. If he was a keeper he would have understood me. "Then what is the trial?"

"Trial of heroes." Cane spun his swords, doing a few quick test swings.

Trial! TRIAL this was, "How in the rotting lands is this torture a trial for heroes!"

Cane looked at my team lying unconscious behind me. "It was never supposed to go like this."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a mistake."

"Was it because I wasn't here? Why should they pay for me not being here." I shouted at Cane.

"No. There was a mistake when they came here." Cane said.

"Then who did this to them."

Cane remained silent, looking guilty.

I looked at him then back to my friends then shook my head. "No."

"It was a mistake. If I had known there were only 4 I would have set a different scenario, and by the time I realized it was too late." Cane said pleadingly.

"You could have done something. Free them, the manual override that you just did."

"By the time we found out there even was a manual override it was too late."

I would like to say that I was enrage filled with hatred and lunged at Cane learning all this, but I only felt numb. "You could have found me."

"We didn't even know who the 5th member was."

"You didn't recognize James." How could he not have recognized my best friend?

"I had never met him before, I only ever really met you." I thought back on it. Cane was a family friend. I knew him, my parents knew him, he came over all the time. He helped me through rough times, always willing to give me advice. But, I had never brought James by his place, and we never hung out at my place. I realized he probably never did meet James.

There were so many questions left but one glimmer of hope as I asked. "So are we free now?"

"Not yet."

I sagged. "Can't you just let us free?"

"Doesn't work like that. This is a challenge. You have to fight, otherwise, it will all start over again."

I stared at Cane blankly as he readied himself for a fight.

One final bit of curiosity, since learning of ages. "Cane, How old are you?"

Cane revealed a bittersweet smile. "Too old, Far too old."

"Do we have to do this?" I asked.

"Yes. You can always try again if you fail here."

I let out a laugh. I knew I wouldn't come back. If I failed I would doom my friends to this fate until they were truly gone. I sighed tiredly pulling out my mask, staring down at it firming my resolve. "No only one chance."

I began to gather the little shadows in the room, everything began to flatten as the shadows gathered into my hands. The room began to dim as I pulled flecks of light into my hands the gathered energy turning to starlight. I stared down into the infinite, held in the palm of my hand. I think I was sad. I had no room to care anymore. I looked up, bringing my hands ups in supplication, holding my hands above my head. Opening my palms, pouring the night sky over me, giving my own benediction. Finally, I brought my mask over my starlit face.

It felt like a long time since I last did this, but it was only a week or so previous. Cane stood there letting me do all this in my own time. It was one thing I was appreciative of. If I wasn't numb my heart would have broken. Then I began to fall away, becoming a cloud of possibilities.

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I leaned forward letting myself plummet forward into the ground. Just before hitting the ground, I chose a new reality, jumping forward, pushing off the ground towards Cane. My target, I left everything he once was to me back in the existence I left behind. Rushing forward, blade bare I struck aiming for the thinner joints in his armor.

Cane casually parried my blow, flowing into an overhand slash with his second sword. Rolling, under the attack I attempted to strike, but Cane followed my movements cutting into my shoulder before I was even able to raise my weapon.

I attempted to back away through new possibilities but Cane wouldn't let me. He followed me, slashing at every opportunity, leaving me no time to think, or plan. The knifes edge I was usually danced was dancing along in time, cutting me with every move, removing more and more of me. I was failing and when I looked up to Cane I could see he was holding back.

"Is this all you got?" Canes disappointment was plain in his voice, but I was busy moving between each corporeality just to survive his onslaught. That unconcern Cane had lead to what I was hoping for, a mistake. Cane lazily swung his off-hand sword towards me in a cross-slash. Raising my empty left hand towards the bare blade, I reached out to grab the weapon. A flicker of disbelief flowed over Cane's face, as the razor's edge moved closer. Then I stole it. "Pocket." I opened up my dimensional chamber larger than I ever had before, shoving as much energy into it as I could. Cane's sword passed right into the portal ripping the blade from his hand.

Cane froze in disbelief, at where his weapon had disappeared. I was a Rogue, one thing I knew was how to steal. I could feel the sword sitting in my pocket. It was draining my energy fast. If I wanted to continue this fight I needed to get rid of it, so I threw the sword out of the other dimension and across the room. Seeing a new opportunity I rushed towards cane speaking a word of power. "Faster".

Hurtling through the room at speeds my mind and body could barely keep up with, I struck at Cane dagger constantly morphing with every strike between dagger, sword, hammer, to a bladed whip, constantly shifting at insane speeds. Taking bits and pieces out of Cane, him only able to block so many blows. I was pushing cane back... or at least I thought I was.

Just as I was beginning to feel I could win, I caught a glimpse of the damage I was doing or lack thereof. Cane was healing at a rate faster than the wounds were appearing. Cane may have gone on the defensive, but that didn't mean anything if I couldn't injure him.

Cane smiled. "Good. I knew you were better than that. Now it's my turn."

I didn't sense anything, but his words and attitude made me jump back in panic. That was the only thing that saved me from being impaled. Cane's weapon I thought I had disarmed from him, flew through the air slashing my side as it passed by where my torso used to be.

I never stopped moving trying to put some distance between us, as I pulled out one of my chakrams. I focused on the crystals contained within the circlet blades. I would only have one chance for each blank stone and I had long filled them with power, too afraid of ruining their potential. Now, with our futures in the balance, it was now or never. I concentrated on the jewel within willing what I wanted and spoke. "Multiply"

I held fast to the deadly ring and swung focusing my intent through it. Another chakram appeared flying through the air at Cane. I sliced at Cane, again and again, every swing another deadly ring appeared.

"Neat but that's not going to do anything." Cane said easily parring each flying projectile.

I pulled out my second chakram stacking it at-top the first. I continued hacking at the air and more steal flew. Cane laughed adding his own projectiles, throwing his swords towards me. The blades flew, and seemingly without input from cane would knock all the rings from the air whilst still hurtling towards me.

I smiled, taking my moment. My mind targeted the second gem, willing its new skill upon it. "Shatter."

I swung both weapons, as before metal rings appeared flying towards its target. The swords moved to intercept shattering the rings, but instead of stopping the shrapnel continued through the air into Cane. Sharp metal shrapnel penetrated all over Cane's body causing deep wounds, with the foreign material constant damage preventing his healing.

That's when the swords reached me.

The weapons moved like ghosts held their pommels, swishing skillfully through the air. I was barely able to morph my weapon into a shield. A flash caught my eye from the center of the shield. 'Shit." The energy in the crystal was running low, and soon it would be just an ordinary dagger.

Hiding behind my temporary cover I took a glance, at the flying blades trying to come up with something. 'There!' I saw it, a silver stream of energy flowing from Cane to the swords. Throwing caution to the wind, I jumped forward switching back to a dagger., whilst coating it in power, swinging through cutting the silver tethers. The floating swords fell to the ground with a loud clang.

Free from the constant attacks, I started up a new barrage of death, chakrams flying through the air shattering halfway to Cane creating a cloud of metal hurtling at him. Until they were stopped not a foot away from Cane. Hundreds of tiny projects, stopped by little green leaves falling from nowhere. "You think you're the only one with magic."

"No, but I hoped you forgot." This was not going well. I kept moving and swinging buying time to think.

'What other abilities does he have?' I had no idea. 'I don't want to know I need to get close to him and end this before he can do anything.' With a vague outline of a plan slowly forming in my mind. I continued my onslaught, knowing my weapons would soon run out of power, looking for something. That's when it crystallized into a full-form plot. One that might kill me, without any help from Cane.

"Fuck it." I pushed more power into my skill, falling away faster and further than ever before. The cloud of ethereal copies of me expanded far and distant. Each duplicate was faded and immaterial yet now that they weren't clumped together anyone would be able to tell they were images of me fading away. Pushing this much energy into the skill made me feel faded, like having a tenuous grasp on the thread binding me together, knowing if I let go I would fall apart. Canes face finally showed a bit of surprise as I moved between each possibility, transmitting myself between one eventuality to the next. It was like teleporting between the illusions, only the path I choose becoming real. I flew like a wraith toward Cane.

With no more projectile shooting at Cane he turned to offense, commanded the leaves to hurl at me like a hundred little razor blades. I never let that future solidify, moving between desirable outcomes. But the closer I got the fewer of those possibilities appeared, letting the edges cut my skin. I danced through the pain, reaching canes side, whipping my dagger around changing into razor wire looping around his neck. I pulled with everything I had, only to find I couldn't move. I was frozen, my body drained of power having used the last of it in this last-ditch effort. I couldn't fight whatever Cane was doing to me.

"So close Aster." Cane looked down sadly at me. He made no motion when abruptly, his swords pierced my back and through my chest. I fell to the ground my hand still holding the whip. I felt the warm trickle of blood flowing out of me onto the cold ground, I had nothing left to stop the bleeding, nothing to heal with. I was dying, and I didn't think I would come back if I fell. He didn't know that but it didn't matter. I started laughing a gurgling laugh, tears falling from my face.

"Don't worry you can try again maybe you can wake them up. Before next time."

My vision was growing dark around the edges, but I had one more thing I could do. My hand still held the wire. I pulled, I moved an inch or 2 before Cane stopped me. Pommel falling from my hand with a final clang. I looked up, seeing a small line of red around Cane's neck healing before my eyes.

"See you in a bit Aster." Cane lifted my dagger from the ground moving it to finish me off.

"Wind Wall Expand Expel." A sudden blast of wind through Cane across the room. 'That sounded like Bay.'

I felt a soft hand on my body and a feminine voice. "I've lost you all too many times I can't lose you again. You will heal, you dumb-ass." I tried to turn to the voice, but my body wouldn't let me as I faded to black.