Christopher sits at the middle seat of a booth behind the barrier on the left side of the arena, resting his elbows on the table with his hands braced together before his face. His Vimitech visor hums slightly to accompany its usual glow as he overclocks it with Vim to improve its performance.
His visor allows him to see various forms of energy as they appear in the world before him, including Vim itself. Such a tool isn’t unheard of, but Christopher has the best example he knows of, and he keeps it as understated as he can. If he were ever asked what it could do, he would say that he uses it to track a specific type of energy like thermal or electric.
Revealing that it can show him dozens of types of energy at the same time, and that he is working to get it to detect even more esoteric forms all the time, would be far too telling as to his true capabilities.
It is known, though, that Christopher can detect Vim, and so part of his duties as a referee in this duel are to ensure each duelist is in a state of spiritual neutrality before the next round begins. He gives Elric the go-ahead.
“Duelists ready?” shouts the Liaison beside him.
Neither Mercuria nor Frank protests.
“GO!”
Mercuria goes from spiritually neutral to spiritually activated in a fraction of a moment once more and bounds forwards. Her Yield Circuits - the internal spiritual constructs through which Vim can be guided to produce an effect - are streamlined and efficient, offering almost no blockages to the spiritual energy flowing through them, while her Vim itself is both vast and responsive to her ironclad will.
Mercuria hurtles horizontally through the air, straight at fake Frank.
Surely she’s not trying the same thing a third time… He’s a Prince! It’s too disrespectful!
Meanwhile, visible only to Christopher’s multifaceted senses, Prince Frank weaves Vim into a stable construct that projects an illusory doppelganger of himself around itself. It takes a step forwards, wielding one of Frank’s scimitars in its right hand, as Prince Frank himself steps backwards, wreathed in invisibility.
Frank’s talent as an Illusionist is a troubling one. It calls into question everything about the man and his purpose here - Christopher has drawn several inferences he believes to be true, but he hadn’t been scanning for Vimworks as thoroughly as he could have been. Frank could have slipped something past his stern gaze, loathe as he is to admit.
He seemed fairly genuinely interested in the Vimitech offerings the Staves showed him, but it wouldn’t be outside an Illusionist’s abilities to mask or exaggerate his own reactions. If one looks at his actions as his intentions, it would seem one of his primary goals here was to provoke - or rather, allow his dog to provoke, and then interject himself into, a duel with Mercuria.
But why? A Deonid is especially suited to defeat illusions, he has to know this. Perhaps he is testing his limits? He’s come an awful long way to fight a Deonid - they aren’t *that* uncommon. Does he think he has more of a chance against Mercuria specifically? Pfft.
Mercuria arrests her movement before she enters melee range of Frank’s doppelganger, Vim pooling in her eyes and brain as she looks around and past it.
She’s already clocked it as a fake… must have noticed the lack of footprints. Good!
Mercuria spots something in the sandy arena floor and stalks past the doppelganger, ignoring it totally. It strikes at her, but the moment its conjured blade strikes her Vim-infused body, it dissipates, and the illusion unravels from that point in moments.
Mercuria seems to have zeroed in on Frank now that she knows to look for footprints left by an invisible man. The Prince has taken note of this and conjured a branching trail of illusory prints going in a direction opposite him, and Mercuria pauses, noting a slight directional discrepancy.
“You adapt quickly,” she announces to what must still be to her, open air.
Then she floods the Innate Yield Circuits in her leg associated with strength, durability and swiftness, rears back, and kicks the ground.
THOOM!
A plume of sand and dust surges forth.
Christopher knows where Frank is, able to track him by various energy signatures he is himself unable to disguise. Now that he’s paying attention, he’ll be even harder for Frank to disguise himself against, even compared to Mercuria. The Warden watches where Mercuria watches, feeling a twinge of satisfaction as she zeroes in on a particular tuft of surging sand and silt - one that is, to the visual senses, nonsensically splitting in two at a particular point.
Prince Frank’s true invisible body is still tangible, and the discrepancy in the dust is easily discernible to Mercuria’s empowered Deonid Eyes.
Now she knows where he is. If she strikes now, he might be disoriented by the sand… But if he isn’t, he could still strike first.
Mercuria seems wary of the risk, as well. She knows she’s faster, but her approximation of the Prince’s skill has raised enough to make her respectfully cautious of his overall ability.
She tackles the problem indirectly. She bounds to the left of ghost Frank, stopping at a point 6 feet away from him long enough to kick yet more dust at him. She completes this maneuver two more times, buffeting Frank with sand from two other directions. With each impact of her empowered leg upon the sandy floor, another THOOM rings out into the arena.
The distortion in the sand’s movement is no longer stationary and waiting, it is stumbling about, trying to escape. Prince Frank likely has sand in his eyes, Christopher estimates, or at least he doesn’t want to be hit by sand propelled with the force of Mercuria’s kicks anymore.
Elric leans over. “I can barely follow what’s happening. Is he hit yet?”
“Give him a chance,” interjects Lethrin II Pereman, seated on Christopher’s other flank. He didn’t complain about the first hit on Frank, probably because there could be no dispute, but Christopher notes that he argues for lenience as soon as there’s a little bit of wiggle room. He’s rooting for Frank, which is to be expected, but it still pays to know that the Prince inspires loyalty in his closest underlings, despite appearing cowed by Ko Adrilius during his outburst.
It’s a leap of logic, but if Lethrin, a clearly proud and macho man, cares to argue as Frank’s advocate, Christopher estimates that Ko probably has true respect for him as well, or is at least further from the blatant disrespect the Warden observed earlier.
Another point for this whole duel-as-apology being pre-arranged after all.
Regardless, luckily for Frank and Lethrin, Christopher happens to agree that the match doesn’t need to be ended yet. He waves a hand ‘no’ in Elric’s direction and keeps his visor trained on the duelists as Mercuria closes in for the finisher.
Invisible Frank is stumbling out of the cloud of dust, too distracted or otherwise unable to conceal his footprints as he emerges. Mercuria shifts her grip on her saber, readies herself, and then seems to reconsider, sheathing it quickly so that she has that free hand to remove her left steel gauntlet.
Oh, come on… She’ll tell me she was just being cautious, but she can’t help but try and humiliate him. She wants to see him do more than what he is now, wants him to leave it all on the field. I understand the impulse, but this is too much for a Royal. I’ve let her go too long without entertainment.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Mercuria simply hurls her gauntlet into his lower right thigh, her accuracy impressive for throwing such an unorthodox object against a concealed target. It bounces off of Frank’s leg with a THWAP, and the Prince cries out in pain and falls to the floor, his invisibility dispelled.
Each judge holds their hand out in a closed fist, acknowledging a hit has been made.
“Hit, Mercuria!” cries Elric Watanabe. “Two to one, in favor of Mercuria!”
Mercuria retrieves her thrown gauntlet, then looms over Frank’s prone body as he coughs some sand out of his mouth and nose, brushing his eyes. He turns to her, and she offers him a helping hand to his feet. He easily accepts, giving her a smile.
“I adapt quickly? High praise from one such as yourself. I’m honored.”
“Yeah, don’t get too full of yourself. You’ll lose if you don’t adapt more next round.”
“Oh, I still have plenty of tricks,” Frank smiles.
“You better. Or else,” Mercuria exaggeratedly chomps at the air in the direction of Frank’s head.
“Heh, heh,” the Prince chuckles.
I think she’s joking. I’m pretty sure she’s joking. Better we see more of the Prince’s abilities regardless.
Mercuria’s eccentricities had certainly gotten the pair in trouble in the past, but over the years Christopher has seen her develop a bit more self control and restraint. He considers it a positive change, though he has a hard time separating the new, belligerent but adherent to the mission Mercuria with her old, terrifying, barely human self.
Mercuria might think she’s gone soft, but Christopher knows the truth. She remains the same monster in human skin - the only difference is in the quality and depth of the human facade. That’s okay, of course. He forged a friendship with the monster, not the skin.
The duelists are reset, spiritually neutral. Mercuria’s gauntlet is re-equipped. Christopher signals Elric.
“Duelists ready? … GO!”
Mercuria bounds into action, intent on forcing Frank to deploy his illusions as fast as possible. He obliges, hurrying through a Vimworks array and thrusting outwards with his hands, visibly this time, no longer bothering to conceal the process. Three illusory doppelgangers emerge from him and lunge forwards to meet Mercuria, each wielding a different sword of Frank’s. This time, illusory footprints appear in their wake, lingering webs of Vim that produce a visage of light.
The monster stops on a dime and strafes to the side, peering around with her Vim-infused Deonid eyes, searching for the real Frank. He is already wreathed in invisibility, and he is masking each of his footsteps as he steps back - Christopher can still track him, of course, by way of his thermal and Vimic signature, but for a moment, it looks like Mercuria has nothing to go on.
Looks like she’ll have to repeat the sand trick.
Mercuria glances at the approaching doppelgangers, seemingly weighing her options when it comes to addressing them. To Christopher’s eyes, their facade is quite crummy - but the Vimworks that constitute and animate them have diverged from that of their predecessor. Lines of spiritual energy course from their core to their weapon hands. Christopher hums speculatively.
Despite their visual shoddiness, Mercuria regards them with a bit of wariness, as if she’s unsure whether or not Prince Frank is truly among them.
Does she think he’s disguising himself as a bad illusion? That would be something.
But a breath later, Frank’s illusory concealment of his backsteps lapses, and the heel of his boot-print appears on the sand, unmissable to Mercuria’s eagle-eyed attentiveness.
Mercuria pounces as Frank’s doppelgangers reach her and strike. She does not waste movement adjusting, parrying, or blocking - they are merely illusions, and the real Frank is elsewhere.
Yet this is not adequate. There is a real, audible CLANG! As the broadsword held by one of the doppelgangers smashes into Mercuria’s pauldron. She twists and jerks like a cat dunked in cold water, raising her saber to deflect an incoming saber strike, but she’s too slow to avoid the rapier doppelganger’s strike, which hits her in the lower cuirass with a metallic screech.
Christopher, thoroughly confused, takes a half moment to verify the strikes were real. As the saber, knocked out of the doppelganger’s hands by Mercuria’s monstrous strength, spirals down from the air and sinks into the sand, still real, physical, and displaying no signs of lingering Vim, he is forced to admit that he just witnessed an illusory construct wield a physical weapon. A clean hit. He holds out his fist, and after a moment, the other judges do too.
“Hit, Frank! Two to two, tied!” cries Elric.
In the moments after the rapier strike, as Christopher deliberated, Mercuria furiously destroyed all three illusions in quick succession. Frank dispels the rest of the illusions, the illusory footprints and undisturbed bits of sand covering real ones, a moment later.
Mercuria surveys the landscape, taking it all in. She clenches her gauntleted fist so tightly that the steel creaks and deforms, grinds her teeth together with such force that blood leaks from her gums. She makes eye contact with Prince Frank, smiling at her from a dozen feet away. He is bereft of the three weapons wielded by his now-deceased doppelgangers.
Mercuria spits a bloody glob onto the sand.
“That was… Pretty good. You can make illusions that hold real objects. I’ve never seen that before,”
“I dabble in conjuration, as well. It lends a potent degree of versatility to my technique, don’t you think?” Frank asks as he strolls over to one of the dropped weapons.
“Sure. Why bother carrying the weapons if you can just conjure them, though?”
“Conjuring a blade out of Vim is a different order of complexity than conjuring an ectoplasmic hand and arm within an otherwise illusory shell. It conserves resources, and it’s easier to pull off in a hurry. You don’t exactly give me a lot of time to shape extra-complex Vimworks, here.”
“Conjuring multiple illusory doppelgangers in only a few moments seems extra-complex already, to me,” Mercuria replies flatly.
“Ah, true. You know, I didn’t make a mistake when you saw my boot-print.”
“Yeah, I gathered. I thought you had reached your limit.”
“Hah! The truth is, Mercuria, I think I’ve got you good and predicted. Your brutal, ruthless efficiency makes you predictable. If you can be convinced you have victory within your grasp, you’ll disregard anything to achieve it.”
“Hardly a novel observation.”
“But it is the observation that will allow me to win this duel. Sure, in a real fight, you would have benefited at no cost by disregarding my doppelgangers - you are armored, and far too durable for them to hurt. You would have cut me down in my invisibility before I could even riposte… but this is not a real fight. A duel is a game, with rules, and I always play by the rules. A difference between you and I.”
Prince Frank stands on his side of the arena, having recollected all of his weapons. An energetic pallor descends over his princely features as he speaks, intently staring Mercuria in her crimson eyes.
“The next point will decide the duel. I want to win, badly. But I gave you that observation about yourself because I don’t think it should be too easy. My truth-knower said you have been domesticated, but I think hatred might have distorted his usual honesty.”
Christopher, not for the first time, considers that Prince Frank may actually be here for glory and death, and also something of an imbecile Illusionist savant. He certainly is an Illusionist to the core - since his arrival, he has oscillated from performance to performance, each appearing sincere to Christopher's estimations, yet in hindsight contradictory. The man is an existential liar, and Christopher finds himself wondering if it would in fact be better for Mercuria to kill him and be done with it.
“I don’t think you’ve changed at all. Let’s find out just how quickly you can really adapt, Mercuria III Deonid… Because the truth is, I don’t have any limits.”