Tala held her aura firm as close to the fount as possible, forcing it to manifest the copies of its original host closer and closer to itself.

Mistress Cerna was backing Tala up with a spellform designed to facilitate and augment both her own willpower and Tala’s aura sovereignty over the specific area in which the fount stood.

As her aura didn’t directly affect the fount—because it couldn’t—and it also didn’t harm the copies, the fount seemed unaware of the inhibition, or at least unable to muster a direct countermeasure as of yet.

Things were looking rather good as the unit as a whole was quickly battling back the copies that were now receiving reinforcements quite a bit more slowly.

It was then that the fount pulsed, a ripple reaching out just far enough to contact Tala’s aura, interlaced with her own and Mistress Cerna’s will.

They both recoiled slightly, feeling as if they’d had someone look their way with ill intent.

A presence far beyond any that Tala had ever felt before descended, seeming to take stock of the situation. After a moment, the fount flared, twisting and distorting to Tala’s threefold sight before a rolling laugh echoed through the cell. “Boon honored, bargain fulfilled as struck.”

With that, the presence vanished, leaving the fount heavily altered, yet still somehow fundamentally the same.

Tala felt herself pale as a possibility clicked into place. “Was that…?”

Mistress Cerna was already weaving magics around herself below where Tala hung in the air. “A Sovereign, yes. That explains how this fount was so resilient. The mage must have sought—and received—a boon and used it for… something. It seems like whatever this last change was has used up the last of the boon, however.”

“So… survive, and it will be out of tricks?”

“Or this last modification made it sufficiently powerful to no longer require a Sovereign to back it up.”

“I like that less.” She considered for a long moment as the fount finished twisting and contorting, rearranging itself at the behest of the Sovereign’s lingering supreme will. She had a sinking feeling as a thought came to her, “Did this guy’s type of magic specifically require it to be a copy of him?”

That was the only warning they had before a new form stepped from the fount.

Tala pulled back her aura in horror, forcing her iron spikes away as a precaution as well.

Only then did one of the others notice and react. It was, of course, Rane. “Tala? Is that… you? It made a copy of you?”

Sure enough, a copy of Tala had exited the fount, followed by one of Mistress Cerna. They looked almost identical except that their faces were slack, devoid of any emotion, their eyes empty of higher thought.

A moment later, another pulse rippled out through the cell, being amplified by the remaining copies, and after it passed, a version of each member of their unit stepped from the now portal-like fount.

Master Girt groaned. “I had this dream once. It wasn’t fun.”

Master Limmestare shook his head. “This is quite a horrible trope. Evil versions of us? Really?”

Mistress Vanga shrugged. “They’re not properly equipped as we are. There’s no way they’ll be a true threat.”

At that moment, evil Rane launched from beside the fount and punched Tala toward the ground.

She had just been floating in the air, without much easy means of movement. So, the fact that she hadn’t dodged was reasonable, but even so, he’d moved fast.

As Tala let out a coughing wheeze, she had Alat send a message with two facts prominently placed.

Evil Rane fell upon her like a comet, but she was able to roll out of the way in time, keeping herself between him and the way out.

As soon as she sucked in a breath, she said aloud what she’d already sent, just to be safe, “He’s at least as strong as Rane, and I didn’t detect any inscriptions or ingrained natural magics in the human style. His magics are being implemented by concept magic like arcanes use.”

And since they were being birthed from a fount, they were effectively stepping out of a gateway from the source of magic.

They were full.

She, of course, didn’t have time to say that as False Rane attacked again, only to be stopped by Master Clevnis, who threw a blade of pure power into False Rane’s stomach.

False Rane, of course, moved with the attack, coming out unharmed, but that still interrupted his pursuit of Tala.

Tala suddenly found Terry standing before her, his eyes empty of all emotion. “Terry?”

No, False Terry. That was… horrifying.

Terry flickered into being behind the copy of himself, slashing, but the copy was not so easily killed.

The two became a truly dizzying blur as they matched one another flicker for flicker.

Oh… that’s not good.

-You think?-

Things started to go downhill from there.

False Vanga swelled with added muscle, her skin thickening until it resembled armored plates, and sword-like claws and fangs extended from her fingers and mouth.

Tala gaped before looking toward Mistress Vanga. The woman was red with… embarrassment? Tala barely caught her muttered words. “I never intended to use those magics…”

Beast Vanga roared, having burst free of her clothing.

Even so, it wasn’t accurate to call it naked, as all semblance of the parts usually covered for modesty had disappeared.

It was simply a massive sculpture of flesh and bone in the rough shape of an incredibly overlarge human.

False Limmestare instantly vanished. I didn’t know he could go invisible… That’s really stereotypical of a glass mage.

False Clevnis exploded with a torrent of blades of magic, all shooting for the unit of Defenders.

False Cerna seemed at a loss, given her lack of precious metals to weave into spellforms, and that made Tala chuckle even as she relaxed slightly. Mistress Cerna was a beast to fight… even if not quite as literally as Beast Vanga would be.

False Girt… well? He immediately offed himself. There was a small crack—a rock from the ground had shot upward and put a hole through his skull as effectively as a warhammer could have.

Even as Mistress Cerna was countering the incoming blades from False Clevnis, the death of his false twin caused most eyes to turn to Master Girt.

He shrugged. “I’m always on the edge of death. I only live through conscious choice. That thing clearly lacked that ability or desire.”

That… would have to be addressed after this cell was finished.

False Tala charged forward, streams of iron dust rising up from the ground around her, increasing with her every step.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

No.

-No. That’s—-

That’s iron.

False Tala was soon clad in iron just as Tala herself was.

Well, rust.

As odd as it seemed, as the last of the mage copies were dealt with, the unit was in a very comfortable place.

They’d fought against one another quite a few times, even if it had been with lower stakes and fewer trump cards open to be used.

Tala glanced toward Mistress Vanga and found that the woman was still blushing a deep red, but she was obviously preparing to engage even so.

Master Clevnis snapped out commands. “I have Rane. Master Rane, you take Tala. Cerna back him up. Mistress Tala you’re on Vanga. Mistress Vanga - Cerna. Master Girt - Limmestare. Master Limmestare you’re on that me.”

Everyone nodded, understanding.

Tala couldn’t help but be impressed at his quick assessment and division of opponents. Flow should be more than capable of wounding False Vanga and hopefully keeping her down. Additionally, she should be rather resistant to any sort of ‘healing to harm’ shenanigans that the healer’s false copy could get up to.

Additionally, if Tala were without Flow—not to mention her other equipment—and her higher thought processes, Rane would be a near perfect counter for her. Mistress Cerna was likely being added in to work against any iron shenanigans as much as possible.

I just need to finish quickly to go take all that iron from her.

-That’s a lot, Tala. Won’t that unbalance us toward Reality?-

I hope not? Maybe we don’t take it all for ourselves, just take it from her.

-If we can manage that, sure.- Alat didn’t seem overly confident at the idea.

Tala had one thing to clarify. “Still non-lethal?”

Master Clevnis’s response was quick. “No. Kill quick. If they come back, switch to non-lethal.”

Everyone acknowledged.

Tala launched herself at Beast Vanga, pushing power into her weapon along with her will to turn Flow to a void-glaive as she came arcing downward.

Beast Vanga screamed up at Tala’s falling form, and three things happened at once.

First, Tala’s eardrums burst even within her armor.

Second, she saw that the false healer was creating air as a part of her scream, which increased the intensity to the level it was at, while also pushing her back.

Third, that wave of wind and sound knocked Tala off course, and thus, she came crashing down just in front of the beast instead of close enough to bisect it.

A massive arm swung for Tala. She was a bit disoriented due to her ears popping, and she would have thought the attack would fall short, but she raised Flow to block anyways on pure instinct.

A bone-blade grew out of Beast Vanga’s arm as it swung for her.

Flow met bone and actually seemed to have a little trouble shearing through, even if not much. In this case, however, it would have been better if it hadn’t cut so easily.

Both the still attached and cut-free portions of the bone-blade continued, one cutting at each of her shoulders, even as she was still in position to block.

Her ablative armor fractured, absorbing and dissipating all of the impact from the free-flying side, and negating much of it from the other.

That strike—even so diminished—was still somehow powerful enough to throw Tala into a spin.

Tala had the presence of mind to use the spin, pulling Flow in tight through the turn before lashing out to cut through the retreating arm, splitting it between the two bones in the forearm.

The wound healed almost as soon as it was made.

Well… this is going to be interesting.

Tala fought to drive closer to Beast Vanga, but the ten foot tall no-longer-human kept her at bay with sweeping, hammering blows.

Those often exposed limbs to Tala’s cuts and even to being severed, but Beast Vanga just healed the damage or grew the limb back.

Elsewhere within the cell, Terry and False Terry were flickering up a storm. Even Tala’s threefold sight—with Alat monitoring it closely—could barely catch glimpses of the two terror birds.

Mistress Vanga had killed False Cerna rather quickly given the enemy didn’t really have her main means of attack and defense.

No new Cerna came from the fount.

The fount, in fact, looked… odd, distorted, like a structural support that was under too great of a load.

Around her clashes with Beast Vanga, Tala came to assume that the Sovereign’s interference had made them near-true copies of their Defender unit. As such, the fount simply didn’t have the soul-strength to sustain bonds with—not to mention supply power to—so many highly advanced beings.

Master Clevnis was driving False Rane around the battlefield. That opponent was almost as disadvantaged without his sword as False Cerna had been without her metals. False Rane, however, was still a monster of a survivor, and his defensive magics—along with his other kinetic abilities—made him a difficult fighter to pin down.

Rane and Mistress Cerna were containing and harassing False Tala. Rane used his expert swordsmanship along with his ability to impart so much kinetic energy with each hit—and even near hits—that False Tala’s ablative armor just couldn’t keep up. She didn’t have the white steel to augment it after all, nor did she have Flow to clash blade to blade with Rane.

Mistress Cerna was on containment duty, keeping any sneaky bits of iron from approaching Rane to the best of her ability. She even attacked Rane outright on occasion to trigger his defenses and move him out of the way of some iron he seemed to have missed avoiding through other means.

Master Girt and False Limmestare were both invisible, but Alat easily tracked them with her threefold sight as the two men clashed in an odd sort of blind fighting. It was obvious that they were both aware of where the other was, generally speaking, but they couldn’t seem to determine specifics. That led to a lot of feinting and blocking of attacks that weren’t actually incoming.

All told, Master Girt was winning over all.

As for Master Limmestare, he was having the most trouble of any of them, except maybe Tala or Terry. His glass-fiber defenses were great for blunting False Clevnis’ attacks, but he couldn’t get a hit in on his opponent.

Even so, with Mistress Vanga’s defeat of False Cerna, things began to tip more in the Defenders' favor. She was able to go and help to box in False Rane, forcing the doppleganger to take his first hits.

When fighting Master Clevnis, truly taking a hit was tantamount to losing, and that bore up in this clash as well. False Rane lost a leg first, and that slowed him down enough that he was torn apart in mere moments after the initial wound.

Those two turned first to assist against False Clevnis, and that opponent fell against his original rather quickly. Master Limmestare and Mistress Vanga were hardly needed, though they did make the clash reach its conclusion much faster.

The three of them then moved on to assist Rane and Mistress Cerna against False Tala.

Tala, for her part, wasn’t about to be outdone.

She decided to take a risk, and used iron to push herself stoneward for a quick moment as she darted in.

Her iron then drew her back out before she could drift or fall too far.

She came back to the superficial right beside Beast Vanga’s left side, Flow already lashing out to bisect the woman with a void-cut.

The two halves fell slowly apart, and Tala oriented on the fight between Master Girt and False Limmestare.

With her full attention there, it only took a moment for her to find the opening she wanted.

A pair of siege-orbs lanced out and took False Limmestare by surprise, slamming him back and away from Master Girt before the orbs detonated, obliterating the copy of the glass mage.

That freed up Master Girt to go help against False Tala, who was still giving the whole group trouble.

The evil version of Tala was using clouds of iron dust to interfere with any magics thrown her way, even as she tried to press her advantage against one or another of those seeking to bring her down.

Tala almost moved to join, but before she could she noticed movement behind her through her threefold sight.

Each half of Beast Vanga had grown another half, and the two were standing back to their feet side by side.

“Rust that.” Tala sent a barrage of siege-orbs back at the two beasts—staggered and aimed to keep them off balance and relatively close together—even as she charged back in.

The two were torn open but quickly healed. At least, they began to heal until Tala flooded the wounds with her own iron in the form of a rain of nails, absolutely shredding the beasts’ insides.

Those nails would never have penetrated Beast Vanga’s skin, but with wounds torn open and frozen brittle by the explosions of siege-orbs?

Yeah, there were now plenty of places for Tala to target.

Soon after, the two Beast Vangas were down for the count, utterly stripped of internal iron and covered with a thin plating of iron on the outside.

Tala growled at her erstwhile opponent. “Stay down.”

That handled, she turned back around just in time to see Mistress Vanga take a punch through her chest to gain Master Clevnis the opening that he needed in order to remove False Tala’s head from her shoulders.

Mistress Cerna stepped forward, slamming a cage of power around the two pieces of False Tala, effectively interrupting any attempts to heal or stay alive.

After spitting up some blood, Mistress Vanga healed herself rather quickly, and that was that.

Terry was perched atop the corpse of his false twin, heaving ragged, panting breaths.

He was bloodied and winded but mostly whole. Some of his feathers were bent and broken, and the cuts he had were almost entirely confined to his lower legs and around his reddened beak.

The avian trumpeted toward the sky, encapsulating their collective feeling of triumph rather nicely.

He then looked to Tala before glancing down at the corpse beneath his talons.

Tala chuckled, somehow knowing exactly what he wanted to ask. “Can Terry eat the body, or will that cause issues?”

Master Clevnis looked to his wife, and Mistress Cerna wove a quick series of spells, activating each in turn before nodding. “Go ahead.”

Terry tucked in, then, and ate his false twin with speed and abandon.

I could have gone a long time without seeing that… Even so, she found herself looking toward her own false twin. Her gaze didn’t contain any hunger, but instead, it was filled with curiosity.

-Yeah, I wonder what we can learn from that.-