The face under the hood was hidden by impenetrable shadows, and the hands that grasped the psuedo-sword were as black as the void. Iris held her sword with the hilt low and the long silver and marble blade extending up and out towards the cloaked figure. Abby's tentacles squirmed in the air all around her, forming a defensive barrier. The cloaked figure moved its psuedo-sword to match Iris's posture, and black tendrils extended out from the folds of the cloak in mimicry of Abby.
Iris grinned with child-like glee, "Abby! It's like the story books!"
Confused noises came from the bag.
Iris shifted her feet into position and adjusted her grip on the hilt of her sword, "a hero's greatest struggle is always themself, and in a moment of doubt they have to fight their shadow to overcome it."
Concerned sounds came from the bag.
"Can you talk?" Iris called out.
The shadow said nothing.
"Do you know who I am, or do you just copy what you see?"
The shadow stepped forward. Iris blipped, appearing behind it with tentacles flared around her as her great sword swung wide for its neck. The shadow dissipated, and she felt its semi-corporeal form appear behind her. The psuedo-sword was caught mid-swing by Abby's tentacles and ripped free of the shadow's hands. Abby twirled the psuedo-sword around and slammed it into the marble floor beneath where the shadow had just been, crumbling the chunk of marble and sending splintering cracks across the floor.
The shadow appeared in front of Iris, its dark tendrils clashing with Abby's tentacles as Iris thrust her sword forward. The blade slipped between the folds of the rope and sliced through the other side, but the unbothered shadow reached out with a void-black hand toward Iris's throat.
She tried to blip, but was held in place by Abby's tentacles entangled with the tendrils. The hand grasped her throat and she felt mana rapidly siphoning from her body. A hard swipe of a tentacle slammed into the cloak, folding it and flinging it aside as it were empty -- the shadow dissipating just before the strike. Free from the tendrils, Iris gained distance with a blip to let her mana recharge. The shadow reformed in the cloak before it touched the ground. Iris aimed her sword towards it as she caught her breath.
"What do you even want?" Iris called out.
The shadow spoke in a echoing, raspy voice, "life."
"Sorry, I only have one of those," Iris said.
The cloak fluttered and the darkness within rippled as the shadow quickly flashed to the edge of the trench. It placed a hand on the marble, and Iris instinctively blipped upwards. Spikes of marble shot out from the wall, extending across the trench and slamming into the far wall causing splintered cracks. Iris landed in a crouch atop one of the horizontal beams formed by the spikes, her sword outstretched to one side.
"That's not fair! I can't even do that!"
The shadow crouched and placed both hands on the ground, and Iris blipped again. Vertical spikes shot up from the ground where she had just been as she reappeared beside the crouching shadow with a downward swing from overhead. The shadow rippled again as it flashed away, and Iris blipped just before her sword slammed into the cave floor.
She reappeared in the air behind the shadow, following through her swing towards its head. The shadow whirled around and tendrils reached out to catch the blade, but they were intercepted by Abby's tentacles and the blade struck its target. The cloak collapsed beneath the strike as Iris blipped beside it and caught the falling cloak with a swing of her sword just as the shadow tried to reform within it. The cloak folded over the blade, the shadow dissipating again before it could even form.
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Iris swung her sword wildly in an attempt to fling off the cloak, but the fabric clung to the sword as black tendrils crawled out from beneath it and began to envelope her sword. Abby's tentacles converged on the sword, wrapped around the cloak and attempting to slide it down and off the blade -- but the tendrils held strong as they wrapped around the guard and inched toward Iris’s hands.
Her eyes flicked to the lantern hovering overhead. "Abby, let go!"
Abby's tentacles withdrew from the sword, and Iris swung it towards the lantern. The glass shattered and oil spilled across the blade. The cloak erupted into flames, and Iris dropped the sword before blipping away.
She watched from a distance as the sword clattered to the floor and the fire raged. Slowly, the burning cloak unwrapped from the blade and rose into the air, the shadow figure reforming within even as it burned. A tendril lifted the sword into the shadow's hands, and the flaming shadow flashed towards her.
She blipped to dodge a swipe from the sword, yelling as she reappeared, "that doesn't happen in the books!"
The shadow was quickly upon her again, and another blipped saved her from a downward strike. She cringed as her sword was slammed hard into the floor.
"I just got that, you bitch!"
She thought of her staff and blipped it directly out of the bag into her hands as she sprinted towards the still burning cloak. The shadow flashed forward to meet her with a thrust of the sword.
Abby swung a tentacle against the flat of the blade, knocking it aside just enough to miss Iris by an inch as she drove the point of her staff into the shadow's chest. The cloak gave way beneath the strike, allowing the staff to enter the shadow itself. She squeezed her eyes closed and tipped her head forward before dumping mana into the staff and releasing a powerful blast of force.
The brim of her hat blocked much of the flames as the cloak erupted from within, ripping at seams and tearing along burns. Abby's tentacles caught the sword as it fell, and Iris blipped behind the remnants of the cloak. She swung her staff wide and released force as she did so, causing a swiping gust of wind that scattered the burning scraps of cloth.
She blipped backwards twice, putting great distance between herself and what was left of the cloak. Standing in the darkness, she watched the final flickers of flame fade away into embers, and then into nothing.
Between heavy breaths, she spoke, "did we do it?"
Uncertain sounds came from the bag.
With no light to speak of in the cave, Iris closed her eyes and focused on her senses of the surroundings. The air was still, and the marble was solid. There was no fluttering of a cloak or breeze-like drifting of shadows. She wasn't sure how long she stood that way, but it was long enough for her breath to grow calm and her heartbeat to slow.
"Iris?"
She screamed and opened her eyes. Abby frantically swung the great sword side to side, slicing back and forth to ward off an incorporeal Victoria who had been all but invisible to her awareness ability. The usually faint purple glow of her ghostly form now seemed quite bright as the only source of light illuminating the cave. As Iris realized who she was, so did Abby, and the frantic swinging slowed to a stop.
"You better be careful with that," Victoria said to the tentacles, "that's silver, it can actually hurt me."
Sad sounds came from the bag, almost seeming like an apology.
"What are you doing here?" Iris asked, still catching her breath from the fright.
"Looking for you. You always find trouble when you go off alone at night. What was it tonight?"
Iris led Victoria to the scene of the battle, where a few pieces of brown-grey cloth still littered the cave floor.
"It looked like me," Iris explained, "it even had tentacles and a sword, kind of."
Victoria returned to her physical form, momentarily returning the cave to darkness as she crouched to pick up a scrap of cloth. With her mucus covered eyes, she inspected it closely.
"Mimic Wraith," she grimaced, dropping the cloth and returning to her spectral form, "it was probably bound to the cloak. They're what happens sometimes when a ghost gets so old they forget who they are. Without knowing who they are, they can't know what needs to be done to move on, so they get stuck wandering the world in search of an identity to replace their own."
"I am so sick of ghosts," Iris shouted indignantly, "I thought I was really gonna get to fight myself."
"Why would you want to fight yourself?" Victoria gave her a critical look.
"Doesn't everyone?"