Alex wasn’t prepared for the enormous amount of power that vacated his body like it had become a flat puddle abruptly exposed to the full strength of the desert sun. His heart clenched, sputtered; lungs constricted. Every single vessel in his body felt like it shriveled in the lack of the magic that poured out from him and into the Mirrorlands.
There had only been a single thought on his mind when he’d activated Encore. Claire needed Winky off balance. He didn’t know why, but She wouldn’t have asked for it if it didn’t make a significant difference in the fight — so that was what she was going to get.
That one thought etched itself into Alex’s brain, frozen in place with the rest of the body as Riftwarped Qi and magic poured out from him in an unrestrained deluge. It was the only thing that he could remember for a split second.
And in that second, the air shattered.
Thin claws raked through the air and Glint’s lithe form stepped out from a fractured portal. The Glasmir’s claws glowed with purple-red Riftwarped energy and faint ripples passed through his reflective cloak. Clouds of it marred the silvery mask covering the top half of his face, crackling with cracks of gray lightning like a contained storm.
Black sludge bubbled up from the ground beside him, but what rose up from it was not the Princess that Alex remembered. Instead of a humanoid form came a long, centipede-like creature. Black sludge wept from its body, allowing only flickers of glowing violet carapace plates to shine through before being covered once more. Princess’ mask was positioned where the Centipede’s mandibles and mouth should have been.
Long, gangly legs jutted out from Princess’ new body and clicked against the ground, Riftwarped Qi crackling along their lengths.
Beside her, a crackle of blue lightning heralded Spark’s arrival. And — like Princess — Spark arrived different. The first part of the Echo Wraith to appear was a large, buzzing ball of blue lightning. Black plates of armor snapped into being all around it in rapid succession. Riftwarped Qi imbued them, staining the air in their proximity a dull pink.
Spindly strands of energy snapped out from the ball, connecting to each plate. The plates spun around the ball like a slow-moving tornado, picking up speed as a storm crackled to life all around the blue orb in Spark’s center. Crackling purple eyes appeared within the cloudy magic that made up the Echo Wraith’s amorphous body.
Winky’s lips parted in disbelief. For a brief instant, he stared, trying and failing to comprehend what he was looking at.
“Impossible! Your monsters died!” Winky protested. “You couldn’t have them back already! I saw them—”
The monsters attacked.
Glint’s cloak transformed into a snakelike blade that was whistling through the air like a sliver of light before Winky’s words had even finished leaving his lips.
The Outworlder raised his hands defensively before himself. The Glasmir’s blade slammed against his invisible weapon, ringing out in a clear note. Winky staggered a step back from the force of the blow.
A flicker of surprise clouded his features.
Then Spark was upon him. The chunks of armor hurtling through the air around the crackling storm snapped together in rapid succession, sending loud cracks ringing out through the Mirrorlands as they formed into a hand that was easily six feet long, held together by veins of Riftwarped Qi.
The Outworlder’s eyes widened.
Then the hand clenched into a fist.
Winky raised his hands defensively. Power gathered around him, and a ripple passed through the invisible defenses that surrounded him. The spiked orb that protected the Outworlder rippled like oil had been spilled in the air, becoming vaguely opaque as he poured magic into it.
The massive glowing gauntlet slammed down directly on top of him.
There was an electrically charged boom. The ground around Winky exploded, sending fragments of dirt and stone spraying in every direction.
And, with a loud crunch, the opaque barrier surrounding the Outworlder gave way.
Princess shot toward Winky like a runaway freight train before he could even try to recover from the previous blow. Dozens of glowing legs reached up to cover her mask an instant before she drove straight into the damaged barrier surrounding him.
Magical spikes ripped through her sludgy body, sending it splattering across the ground, but Princess didn’t so much as slow. She plowed straight through the magic, ignoring the huge furrows that tore through her body, and collided with Winky’s stomach.
He doubled over in a pained wheeze as Princess flew straight up into the air, legs swimming through it like water and leaving trails of Riftwarped Magic sparkling in their wake. She slammed Winky straight into his own defenses, flattening his face against them a moment before she drove clean through the magic and ferried him into the air.
Winky twisted and brought an invisible blade down on Princess’ body with a roar. It severed the back half of the centipede in a single strike, sending it plummeting to the ground, but Princess barely even seemed to notice.
Princess turned back toward the ground and started to accelerate. Her legs wrapped around Winky’s body, locking down upon it like burning prison bars and pinning him directly between herself and the approaching dirt.
The Outworlder’s eyes went wide and he struggled furiously to free himself. He managed to rip one of her legs off, but it was too late to break free. He let out a roar of fury an instant before they slammed down with such force that the ground beneath Alex bucked.
And then it was Glint’s turn once more. With the few seconds of existence Encore had granted to him, the Glasmir flowed forward. His cloak wrapped down around his arm and he flicked it back before sending it racing forward like a whip.
Winky, who was just starting to claw back to his feet and swaying unsteadily, registered the blow coming too late.
He crossed his arms before his face. Alex was almost certain that he’d formed some form of invisible shield, but it didn’t matter. Glint hadn’t aimed for the Outworlder’s neck. After all, his vitals were the locations that he was mostly likely to protect.
Glint’s orders weren’t to kill Winky.
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They were to weaken him.
And thus, his whip slashed across Winky’s leg. It bit through the man’s clothes and cut deep into his skin, spilling crimson across the ground. Winky snarled and staggered, his balance giving out.
“Now!” Alex roared, spinning to Claire.
Then he froze.
Claire’s fight was not going well.
Shale stood across from her, swords spinning around him and a cocky smirk on his lips. Claire was in bad shape. Her body was cut to ribbons and her clothes were soaked through with blood. She’d managed to keep herself from bleeding out with her abilities, but she was clearly on her last legs. Shale was too powerful for her to deal with on her own.
Shit. I really hope that she’s got something good stored up, or we might be fucked.
“Excuse me?” Derek called. “I—”
“Would you shut up already?” Shale snarled. “I’ll deal with you when the time comes, Nativeworlder scum. I am busy.”
“Claire!” Alex yelled. “Now!”
Claire’s eyes snapped to him, then shifted to Winky. A cold grin split her features and she blurred.
The Outworlder tried to bring his invisible weapon to bear, but he was still heavily disoriented and injured from the full onslaught of everything Alex could bring to bear. He stumbled and missed Claire as she coiled around him like a snake and bit down on the side of his neck.
Winky cried out in pain and shoved Claire back. Her fangs ripped free from his neck in a spray of blood and he swung his hand through the air.
Claire skipped back and the ground before her feet parted as Winky’s invisible weapon bit into it. She stumbled to a stop beside Alex, nearly tripping over her own feet. He caught her by the shoulders before she could fall.
The Dhampir didn’t say a word. She closed her eyes and leaned against him, her features creasing in concentration. Alex didn’t know what, but she was trying to do something.
“You bitch,” Winky snarled as he clasped the wound on his neck. “What are you doing, Shale? Why did you let her get away from you?”
“You are not scared of a Nativeworlder,” Shale said, derision dripping from his tone.
“Excuse me?” Derek asked once more. Orchid squirmed on his shoulder, but he still didn’t put her down. “It’s not very polite to tell someone to shut up. I’m trying to be nice here. I was actually in queue to have a fight with Alex before you came, so if you would wait your turn—”
“Stuff it,” Shale growled. The swords around him started to spin. “I’ll kill you first if you don’t shut your damn mouth, you big stupid oaf.”
“I’m so fed up with this shit. I’m ending this.” Winky strode forward, thrusting his hands out. His shoulders shuddered as something heavy — and invisible — materialized in each of his hands.
Claire’s eyes snapped open, and Alex’s breath froze in his lungs of its own volition.
Hers were the eyes of a monster. They’d turned as black as a starless night.
She pushed away from Alex and stared straight at Winky as he advanced toward them, shifting from a brisk walk to a charge.
Then Claire lifted a hand toward him and clenched it into a fist.
“You have no eyes.”
“What are you—” The rest of Winky’s sentence was lost in an agonized scream.
Both of his eyes burst in a spray of fluid, leaving behind nothing but weeping sockets. He staggered, and the indents of two huge axes appeared on the sand beside him as he stumbled over his own feet and crashed to the ground in a spray of sand. The Outworlder clawed at his face desperately as he continued to scream.
What the fuck?
Claire wiped the blood from her lips and spat on the ground.
Shale swept his hands down and his swords howled through the air like arrows. Alex snapped back into the present. He lunged forward, dragging Claire out of the way of several blades and closing the distance between them and Winky.
Then, with a snarl, he thrust his palm forward and drew on the scraps of his magic. A spine of glass burst from his palm and drove straight through one of Winky’s hands, continued into an empty eye socket, and ran through his skull to pin it into the sand beneath.
Winky jerked. His back arched; he stopped struggling. Energy flowed into Alex in a refreshing stream. He had absolutely no idea what the hell Claire had just done, but he didn’t care.
Shale’s features were considerably less confident than they had been a moment ago. Alex could practically see him trying to remember if Claire had managed to bite him at any point. The man’s features grew stormy and his swords swirled around him defensively.
“Scum,” the man snarled. “If you think you can get away with stealing from the Broken Sword, you are sorely mistaken. You will suffer for taking our property.”
“I’m starting to lose my patience here,” Derek said.
“Sorry, Derek,” Alex said absently, not letting his eyes leave Shale. The man could attack at any time, and he had nearly no magic left to work with. “I’ll happily have another match with you after we deal with this prick.”
“I don’t have much left,” Claire whispered to Alex, her lips barely moving as she spoke to avoid letting Shale pick her words up.
“You didn’t happen to get a chance to bite him, did you?”
Claire’s lips twitched in a pained smile. “No. And even if I did, I don’t have the energy to do much more. I’m using everything I’ve got to avoid dying on the spot.”
Shale ran his hands along the surface of a sword. It shimmered, then started to vibrate in the air like a buzz saw. If anything, that just felt like overkill. He was already in considerably better shape than Alex and Claire.
“I would take my time with the lot of you, but I still need you alive,” Shale growled to Alex, cracking his neck. His eyes landed on Claire. “But you, monster girl — you are going to suffer.”
A howl of fury ripped through the Mirrorlands. It was like the rage of a thousand tortured sinners had slipped free of hell at once. Everyone — even Shale — flinched and spun in search of the monster.
There was a squelch, followed by the loud whump-whump of a massive axe spinning through the air. Shale’s swords crossed before him in a flash and the axe rang off them with a resounding clang, flying to land on the ground beside him.
Derek let out a rattling breath and lowered his hand, his lips pulled back and teeth bared in a snarl. His right eye twitched. He lowered Orchid to the ground, setting her down gently before taking a step forward.
“Sorry, miss. I’ve got to put you down for a moment,” Derek growled, ripping a broadsword out of his back in a spray of blood. He pointed the blade at the Outworlder. “You are insufferable.”
Shale flicked his hand.
One of the blades flying behind him flashed. It slammed into Derek’s neck, burying itself up to the hilt.
Derek didn’t even flinch. He grabbed the hilt of the blade and pulled it free. He flicked the blood from it, his breathing growing heavier.
Shale blinked in surprise. “What in the—”
“I hate people like you,” Derek said. His voice had changed, grown lower and throatier in pitch. “Is it so hard to be polite? To wait your turn, or to at least answer my god damn questions?”
Shale flicked another sword at Derek.
It ran clean through his eye and jerked his head back. Derek kept speaking, not even bothering to right the position of his head or pull the blade free of its new sheath.
“I’ve had it to my limit with this,” Derek said. “People have always been pricks, but ever since the apocalypse, I’ve run into so fucking many of them. It’s like you’ve all forgotten manners.”
“What kind of freak are you?” Shale demanded. “How are you alive?”
“No, no, no.” Derek shook his head. Veins bulged in his neck and he shifted his stance, lowering himself to the ground and digging his hands into the black sand. “You don’t get to start asking questions now. It’s too late for that.”
“You think I’m scared of you?” Shale asked through a scoff. “Changing your attitude and crouching like a dog isn’t going to do anything but humiliate you.”
“You’re just like all the other anomalies I ran into.” A point pressed against the skin on Derek’s back, then carved free of his body to reveal a sword protruding from the center of his spine. Several other blades followed after it in a line. “I couldn’t teach them manners. I wonder if you’ll be any different.”
Dull red lit behind Derek’s eyes.
The confidence on Shale’s face evaporated.
Alex’s skin prickled.
Orchid squirmed desperately on the ground, managing to catch her cloth gag on a sharp rock. She ripped it free and drew in a ragged breath.
“What are you doing? Run!” Orchid screamed. “He’s an Incarnation!”