Okay, let’s think this over, Perry thought as the Mimic lunged away from the wall, charging at him while a swirl of essence coalesced into a potent spell designed to paralyze him entirely, rendering him insensate while the creature devoured him.

It was happening at a snail’s pace, all things considered.

It’s not really that odd considering I was just fighting the fastest super on earth.

The previous fight with Solaris had only taken a minute or so, and most of that was the talking.

The mom-creature’s – We’re gonna call her Momimic – limbs bent a little, tensing against the wall.

Here’s the situation, Perry leisurely thought while the creature crawled it’s way through syrup-thick air towards him.

I’m surrounded by mimic. My mom is a mimic now, and trying to kill me. I’ve got a magic scrambler on me. I’ve only got one weapon, but if the damn thing has half a brain it’ll just crush me inside it. If I cut my way out, there’s a good chance Solaris will find me and I’ll be at square one.

My other four Possibilities got wiped out fighting Solaris while we were eating cereal, so this is the path we’re on. I wonder if the cereal was mimic? Given my Body stat, I bet I could digest it before it became a problem.

Perry refocused.

So I guess step one is ‘get rid of the scrambler’.

Step 2: Disable the portal block Momimic put on the outside of the bunker-mimic.

Step 3: Escape to Australia once my Portal.exe refills?

Wouldn’t take more than a few hours. Most of his Essence batteries were full, just a few of the shared ingredients from Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation, the Probability Dodge, and Seraphine’s Ouchie Corrector were bottomed out. Which was problematic.

Few hours? Son of a…Hmm. Maybe I can…

There were a few spells he could still cast. Specifically ones that didn’t involve teleportation or healing.

Aw, shit, that includes the Pernicious Prison.

But…he still had Essence from Echo Parrots and those Hadoken Crabs.

Yeah…that could work.

If Perry managed to remove the scrambler, then he went from being at a disadvantage to basically having ‘won the fight’ already, but winning the fight was a moot point. There was an excellent chance this Bunker-mimic has some kind of exterior façade, and if Perry damaged it enough, that exterior façade would shudder or shift in pain as the Tasmanian Devil that was Perry tore up it’s insides.

And if that happened, Solaris would notice, because the man was probably zipping around the American Continent looking for any sign of his AWOL prey.

I’m really starting to sympathize with Professor Replica’s Solaris trauma.

To sum up: Perry needed to break the enchantment on him and teleport away…without doing too much damage to the Bunker mimic he was currently inside of, and fast enough that it didn’t say ‘fuck it’ and turn the entire room into digestive juices.

Momimic’s tendrils left the wall as it began sailing slowly through the air.

You know, there’s a bright point here: Perry mused to himself as he walked around the flying ball of taloned tendrils.

If this thing didn’t know how fast I am, that means that Dad is alive…or at least not mimicked.

Dad had not only designed The System, he had also had a fist fight with Perry to work out some issues after he’d hit level 18. Dad knew how fast he was, and that was about it.

Since the mimics were unaware, Dad must not’ve told them what he was capable of.

So he was either dead and with mom in Elysium, or alive.

It was a nice thought, him and Mom hanging out on the beach, with Elysian Attendants taking care of their every need. Perry would have to ask after this was over.

Alright, let’s see what this scrambler is made of.

The magic scrambler Momimic had cast on him was based on an ancient design that was quite potent, able to effectively muzzle any mage that allowed it to come into contact with their skin.

Any ancient mage, without access to a powerful system and pure essences unburdened with meaningful connection to a living Soul Symbiote.

If Perry had to make an analogy, it was a bit like a steel collar attached to your neck, and the tools that you could use to remove it without a proper cutting instrument.

Similar to a steel collar, you could hit it with liquid nitrogen and then a blowtorch, and it would explode (ignoring the damage that would do to your neck).

Now, an ancient mage only had a few Souls Symbiotes and every essence they produced had to jive with each other in some respect. You couldn’t get totally opposite Essences from the same creature (save one) nor would those essences be purified into perfect wavelengths.

So the enchantment could adjust and adapt to the strain of any essence streaming through it without too much trouble.

But run two perfect wavelengths of essence through it that created destructive interference with each other?

BOOM!

The essence scrambler against his skin lost cohesion and exploded outward just as the Momimic landed on the other side of the room, seemingly confused that Perry was now standing behind it.

Perry was more than happy to break out his B-list: The stuff that wasn’t quite up to snuff against a walking ball of nuclear fusion, but perfectly good enough against things that didn’t move at light speed.

Paradox’s Ethereal Dodge.EXE

The light in the room wobbled a moment as for all intents, Perry’s hitbox shrank.

A bundle of lasers from the ceiling pierced the place where his body should’ve been as dozens of turrets emerged from the ceiling of the bunker.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Paradox’s Time-Out.EXE

The bunker froze in place, effectively becoming inanimate until Perry decided otherwise.

Momimic spun around, deflecting the Time-out before unleashing a Michela’s Hindrance, slowing down everything save herself. An inverse haste spell, shortly followed by a Brethor’s Dominion targeting Perry’s Fate.

It was basic. Matter of fact it was exactly how his uncle had fought him…but it was basic because it was the most effective use of time for the beginning of a fight between traditional mages.

Seize control of the opponents Fate and they couldn’t win if they wanted to.

Perry punched the fate spell as it travelled through the air towards him, shattering it with his bare hand before sucking the remains into his batteries, partially recharging a casting of the Probability Dodge.

“Wha-“

“I hate to say this, ‘mom’,” Perry said, sliding his thumb down his newly created rapier.

Paradox’s Second Blade.EXE

The rapier burned with crimson light for a moment, which settled into an ominous, organic pattern along the length of the former chunk of rebar.

“But you may be a bit out of your league here.”

Perry was FAR more equipped to handle magic and monsters than he was to handle Solaris. This was going to be a cakewalk.

“Wow, you’ve improved so much!” Mom’s voice came out of the creature’s gaping maw. “I’m so proud of you!” he could see the line of her throat and chin against the back of the mimic’s mouth, as if she was buried in a wall of meat and all he needed to do was desperately claw her out of there.

Perry’s eye twitched.

Maybe not a cakewalk.

Perry had to admit he might be a little angry. It was normal to get angry. It was Stable. But getting angry was unacceptable right now.

Sliding Stats

Stability: 136 - 134

Attunement 135 – 137

A calming sense of cold swept over Perry as the Otherness of the outer dimensions pressed in around him, like dipping into a pool wearing a trash bag. A sudden, urgent change in the ambient pressure of the fifth dimension and beyond.

The mimic seemed to feel it too, it’s waving claw tips paling momentarily as they wilted. Like a flea that had just realized it was fighting the world it’d been standing on.

Perry lifted Lung-Piercer and took a stance.

En Garde, you bastard.

While angry, Perry had been waffling between violently assaulting the mimic and doing everything he possibly could to keep his ‘mom’ alive.

That would’ve gotten him hurt, especially if the creature changed back to his mother mid-fight, throwing him off-balance, exploiting his sudden hesitation. It was a predictable tactic, but no one was ever prepared for it.

With his expanded mindset, he’d decided on one goal: To keep it alive.

There may be a way to summon Mom’s soul into its body or some method of using its body as a component for a resurrection spell…if one of those existed, Grandmother likely knew how to do it.

Best not kill the monster and trim his options prematurely until he knew what his options actually were.

In the meantime, lets delay until Portal.EXE has a charge.

Momimic paused, shuddering for a moment before solidifying back into the shape of his mother.

“You always were a bit dramatic.” She said, a scintillating orb of Essence coalescing between her fingertips, morphing into a rapier to match his own.

“I blame my parents,” Perry said with a shrug.

“You know, I never managed to beat Andre Demetre, but I would consider myself fairly good at dueling.” Momimic said, taking her stance.

Perry looked her over and adjusted his own stance. He’d never been taught how to use a rapier, so he’d have to learn as they went.

“My little boy, such a quick learner,” She said, motioning with one hand, causing the world around them to expand until they were standing in the center of a battlefield a quarter mile wide.

Basically they’d shrunk in order to have more space.

She split into six individual fighters and formed a semi-circle around Perry.

The one to his left thrusted first, attempting to lure his blade away while the ones on his right aimed to pierce through his ribcage.

Perry was briefly alarmed as Mom’s rapier went right through his own, nearly skewering him until the Ethereal Dodge picked up the slack, humming with effort as it defied the cursed blade’s hunger for blood and warped space around him.

Perry stepped to his left, putting himself inside the reach of the one that’d just missed while the ones on his right made their lunge.

His new distance made it impossible for them to run him through, but just at the right range for him to get a taste.

He reached out with his hand and slapped the blade on his right up towards his face and took a bite off the tip of the rightmost copy.

Now it was Momimic’s turn to be surprised, her eyes widening as she took a step back. The two in the center tried to hit him with debuffs, which did next to nothing, carried along by his Attunement, like an accretion disk.

Ah. Perry thought as the information about the spell flooded into him.

He didn’t know the name of the rapier spell she was using, as it was probably a personal hand-me-down from Gramma, and he hadn’t seen it in Mom’s spell-book. Essentially, it was designed to only interact with living flesh, and the edge bore a rather nasty curse that Perry had barely avoided when he’d slapped the tip of the sword without cutting himself.

The copy with the bitten sword took a step back and began fixing her blade while the other five unleashed a flurry of attacks.

Perry injected a pinch of Vivant Root Essence into his rebar sword, making it technically living for the purposes of the enemy’s spell.

He parried all five simultaneously, crimson copies of Lung Piercer appearing and diverting the attacks.

The mimic seemed surprised when his living sword didn’t rot away on contact with the cursed edge of her blade.

“It’s gotta actually make a cut to curse something,” Perry said, motioning to the flawless, unmarked blade in his hand.

Beat-up Lung-Rebar was highly susceptible to Spendthrift.

Momimic snarled, but Perry copied her lunging stance, stepping forward and aiming for her shoulder.

He withdrew the vivant root, allowing his blade to pass through hers, and all five failed to divert the attack, taking Lung Piercer to the lung, staggering back with wide eyes.

Perry felt the last one coming from behind him and stepped out of the way, sending vivant root back into his sword and diverting her attack into one of her copies.

The copy’s eyes went wide a moment before it unravelled into raw essence. Her clone spell was designed not to spread curses back to the original, self-deleting instead. Good stuff.

Perry took three quick steps back and to the side, breaking the encirclement and putting all five remaining copies of the mimic in his field of view.

“For most people this is a euphemism,” Perry mused as the holes in their lungs healed over thanks to the rapid physiology of a mimic.

“…But I could do this all day.”

Est. Time until Essence runs Dry: 15 Minutes.

Est Time until Portal.EXE charge regained: 2 hrs.

***Brendon***

R-R-R-R

Brendon’s truck let out a pained grinding noise, causing him to wince internally.

“You gotta let off the clutch at the same time that you press the gas. Just a bit at first.”

“I did,” Jay said, sweat beading on his forehead as he squinted down the road. The younger kids in the back had taken to chanting his name every time he grinded the gears.

“Did you do them smoothly?” Brenon asked.

“How am I supposed to know what ‘smoothly’ even means?”

“Just keep trying it, you’ll get a feel for it,” Brendon said.

R-R-R-R!

“Jay, Jay, Jay!” The backseat drivers shouted.

“Why is this so hard?” Jay demanded.

“It’s not hard, it just takes a knack is all,” Brendon reassured the irate car thief. “Jess can be a little temperamental, but she’s definitely not the pickiest truck I’ve ever driven.”

Jay looked at him with furrowed brows. “You named your truck?”

“Eyes on the road!” Brandon shouted, directing Jays attention toward the massive tree root that proceeded to nearly flip the truck.

The oldest robber’s name was Jeremy, but he hated it, so he introduced himself to everyone as Jay.

I’m sorry, Jess. You were like a truck to me, and I shouldn’t’ve agreed to do this to you.

Brendon saw Jay’s eyes, now haunted, tracking the bushes and surroundings as they went past.

“Don’t look to the sides. Stuff at our sides is going by too fast to do anything to us. you gotta look out way ahead. Those are the things that can be a problem. A hundred feet for every ten miles an hour you’re going…roughly.”

Jay nodded, silently refocusing his attention on the distance.

“And I know this doesn’t really apply right now, but for every ten miles an hour on the highway, you want a car length between yourself and the guy ahead of you. You could also use the three second rule. Mark something they pass, and if it takes you less than three seconds to reach it, ease up on ‘em.”

It took nearly an hour of painstaking instruction, but eventually they offroaded all the way the kid’s home base.

“Whaddya think?” Jay asked, motioning to the tree fort haphazardly assembled in the branches of a towering oak.

“Part of me thinks it’s probably not OSHA certified,” Brendon said with a shrug as they approached. The tree must’ve Triggered, or something, because it was roughly the size of a four-story building, and twice as wide.

“The rest of me thinks it’s freakin’ awesome!” Brendon shouted.

“WOOO!”