Rina, wait.

“Huh?” I was so surprised that I vocalized my confusion. Orange’s never used my name before.

My double pulled me to my feet. “You what?”

I shook my head. “Can you give me a second?”

She chuckled and winked. “Of course. I’m sure she has something to say. If becoming a werewolf doesn’t sound good, you can stay as you are now. No harm done. If you still need time to decide, I don’t mind waiting.”

So, Orange, what is it?

We would like to offer something for you to think about. But first, know that we will not deny you any decision you make. That being said, we believe that for your mental and emotional health, you should not take either deal.

And why is that?

Because you would essentially be dying. While the doppelganger is correct, you are capable of choosing both magic and lycanthropy now. More importantly, you aren’t required to change for those closest to you. Becoming a werewolf is not required to be useful. You are useful as you are now.

Wow. I never thought I’d hear something like that coming from you, Orange. But she looks like she’s happy.

Because someone else is happy in their situation, that doesn’t mean you will be satisfied in the same situation. You made the decision you did because that was what you wanted.

Okay, okay. Maybe I was wrong to deny it the first time. This is a chance to fix a possible mistake.

There’s no mistake to fix. A decision needed to be made, and you made it. Second-guessing yourself is counterproductive. If you’re going to do it, do it for the right reason.

Then what is the right reason?

If you have to ask, it isn’t likely the right choice. You’ve made impressive growth without becoming a werewolf. We don’t doubt that you will continue to grow without it. However, with it, you will also grow in different ways as well.

You’re trying very hard to keep me from accepting the lycanthropy.

Remember, you are in a test right now. While we have no reason to believe that accepting her offer will result in your failing, this is still an impulsive decision that could have many unintended consequences.

The time between now and when you declined lycanthropy, the first time is relatively short. Consider Shadara’s trial and the time between her divergent decision.

You’re right.

Shadara’s double was from a decision she made before entering the Soul Nexus. Those two were wildly different. It’s only been several days since mine, and there are noticeable differences in our personalities.

How much will I change the longer I go? How much worse will it get if I become a werewolf? Why am I considering this; so I can kill more readily? Orange is right. I’m not doing it for the right reason. I don’t have to kill people to climb the Soul Nexus.

Just because I’m more machine than human now, that doesn’t mean I have to disregard the lives of others. Killa is okay with me not being such a ruthless killer. Shadara is too.

I let go of my doppelganger’s hand as I held my hands up and took a step back. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to decline.”

She gave me a toothy grin. “Like I said before, no hard feelings. You’re holding true to yourself. That’s commendable.”

“Does that mean I pass?”

My double giggled. “Ah, no. The requirements are clear. You must defeat me.”

This fight will grant you a great deal of valuable experience. Your abilities will be very close to each other. It will be a battle to test your technique more than anything.

“Are you getting the same speech I am?” My lycan-double asked. “They want us to fight to give you as much experience as possible.”

I nodded as I made some distance between us. “If yours is anything like mine, yeah. The Nexus really is a horrible place, making me fight a copy of myself because it can.”

She nodded too. “It brings the worst out of people as it turns them into monsters. I’m just a more literal example.”

I tilted my head. “Are you calling yourself a monster?”

“Look at me,” she answered with a deadpan expression. “I’m a monster our world made movie villains of. I crossed that line. If you saw some of the things I’ve done, you’d be sick.”

She held out her arms, and her claws doubled in length. “In respect to your decision, I’ll try not to bite you. But you’ll need to give everything you got. I won’t take it easy on you. This is for your own good.”

I pulled my gun out and made sure it was fully loaded. “I understand. This isn’t what I wanted. But that’s a running theme for me.”

My evil double hunched forward. “Whenever you’re ready. I want you to succeed. It means that my existence is ensured. It means I can live.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I whispered.

With a quick breath, I snapped my gun up and fired off a shot. Unsurprisingly, my opponent dodged. But I fired again, aiming for her knees. But she was too quick, and she dodged again.

I kept shooting. As she got closer, I started moving away to keep my distance. Whenever my gun ran out of ammunition, shadowy tendrils fed into the chambers to reload it. There wasn’t a break in my firing. Round after round, I fired, but couldn’t hit the werewolf that kept charging after me.

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She burst towards me while dodging another shot. I couldn’t help but notice that if I pushed myself, I was still the faster of the two of us.

But we weren’t getting anywhere. She couldn’t reach me, and I couldn’t hit her.

Her balance really is good. She was twisting and turning at extremely sharp angles, yet never tripping. But I need to do something unexpected to change the status quo.

I fired another round as I stopped. My double twisted and leaped into a barrel roll. While she was in midair, I pushed my muscles to double my normal limit. The coils overtwisted, and some snapped in my legs. But I moved fast enough to charge her before she hit the ground. My fist collided with the top of her head.

Fear welled up as my wrist, elbow, and two fingers were dislocated as my arm crumbled from the impact. Her momentum carried her into me. The bones in my chest broke, shooting minor jolts of pain. I could even feel my mana battery shifting inside my chest. My gun flew from my grip, and I was faced with a werewolf that weighed way more than she should, pinning me to the ground.

“Nice try, but I weigh five times more than you.” She pushed her hand down on my chest.

What bones that weren’t broken before, were breaking as my lungs were being crushed under her hand. Each broken bone snap resounded in my ear. Oddly enough, I wasn’t in as much pain as I thought I should be. Even with my lungs crushed, I didn’t feel the impending rush of suffocation.

A secondary clock appeared on my HUD. It read that I had seven and a half minutes of functioning oxygen levels.

Seven minutes to get her off me? Something tells me she won’t need seven minutes to rip me apart.

I punched at her with my arm blade as I extended it. She protected her neck by interposing her metal arm. My blade stabbed through the metal and between the bones, but couldn’t reach her neck. My double used the situation to mush my arm to the side.

After retracting my blade, I tried again. The dislocated parts of my other arm were healing, and I could feel them sliding back into place. But until they were healed, I had to hold her attention with just one arm.

Pushing myself to my limit without causing more damage, I stabbed again. She blocked with her other arm. Over and over, I retracted and stabbed at her face while avoiding her hands. It was working. I was able to get her on the defensive.

As my other arm healed, my chest mostly filled back out as my nanites reconstructed my bones. The werewolf tried to push my arm blade away again as it impaled her hand. I threw a punch with my left hand into her snout.

She leaned back and threw her hands up over her face. Attempting to slow her down, I drove my arm blade through her heart. She still uses hers.

My lycan-double lurched forward as she looked down at the wound. Her hand clamped down on my forearm, preventing me from retracting the blade while holding it in. I punched her wrist as hard as I could. She held on, but my blade slashed out the side of her chest, opening a normally lethal wound. My opponent snatched my other wrist as she slumped forward more. Her lung was rapidly filling with blood, while more of it poured down the side of her torso, soaking her black fur.

You need to destroy her brain.

I know that!

I tried to free my arms, but she held on with a vice-like grip.

I need a hand, literally.

Additional limb upgrade available.

Cost: 90,000 shards.

Purchase?

Yes!

Please select what limb you wish to receive. A list of over a hundred choices scrolled through my vision. All of them were different kinds of arms.

“That hurt.” My doppelganger slowly lifted her head. Her gaping wound was healing quickly. The bleeding had stopped, and I could see it was sealing up. “Good effort, though. You are still not enough of a match for me yet.”

Orange, I don’t have time to read all the options. Give me something that will help right now.

The werewolf forced my arms across my chest and pinned them with one hand. She slashed my face with her claw. I could feel her dig into my skull. A claw even clipped my eye, filling half my vision with static.

Suggestion: Stinger Arm Augmentation.

Proceed?

Yes! Whatever will help.

My left shoulder and collarbone shifted and fractured as a new arm was being constructed. My evil double slashed my face again, digging deeper. Her claws tore through more of my skull, breaking more chunks. I started thrashing harder.

Somehow, I worked myself further down, allowing my legs freedom to knee the werewolf in the back. My new arm wasn’t coming in as fast as I needed it to. So I churned my legs to constantly and rapidly strike her back, causing her hand holding my arms down to slip.

Instantly, I freed my hands. With my left hand, I deflected the werewolf’s third strike to my face. At the same time, my arm blade streamed toward her eye. She swatted the blade upwards before I could hit her.

The muscles and bones in my shoulder and neck shifted as my new arm grew up and out. Black metal plates began wrapping around my growing arm, just like my original arms.

My lycan-double’s eyes as she saw the growth I could feel. “Are you serious right now? What are you growing?”

“I’m just trying to get the upper hand for once.”

I punched her cheek as my new arm surged with growth. It was longer and thinner than my original arms. Instead of a hand at the end, it had a sharp, pointed tip made of metal-plated bone similar to my arm blade.

The muscles connected to my mind. The connection was unsettling but natural at the same time. As my opponent recovered from my punch, I folded my new stinger arm forward and stabbed her in the left eye. She flinched backwards off of me.

I got up and stabbed her throat with my arm blade, ripping a chunk out of her throat. The wound left her scrambling backwards.

Now isn’t the time to let up. Keep attacking to finish her.

I followed after her, attacking with all three arms. My blunt fist struck her nose squarely. She threw her arms up, and my stinger arm pierced both of them to pin them to her shoulder.

With her wide open, my arm blade skewered her right eye. Her body went limp as my blade scraped the back of her skull.

You must destroy a larger percentage of her brain.

Suppressing the disgusted feeling rising in me, I withdrew my stinger and pierced her other eye. A message appeared, awarding me 5 stat points and 109,300 shards.

“It’s over,” I wheezed.

The werewolf’s body shattered into silver shards of glass. In the fraction of a second before they all dissolved, I could’ve sworn I saw the glass form the words “Well done.”

Additional Stinger Arm:

The host has gained an additional arm attached to their collarbone. This limb gains all the benefits of the augments to their other arms. Instead of a traditional hand, the arm ends in a sharp bony stinger. Due to the epidermal plating (arms) level 1 augment, the stinger is coated in the same metal as the arm, altering its offensive capabilities to scale with epidermal plating’s toughness rather than the host’s power.

Stat Bonus: +20 Power.

Name: Rina Lone Augments: Level: 36 Cellular Regeneration Agility: 342 Synthetic eyes: lvl. 2 Arcane: 255 HUD Power: 120 Mana battery (shadow) integration Quickness: 560 Additional Stinger Arm Resilience: 260 Arm blade (right), Retractable Toughness: 270 Synthetic tendons (legs) lvl. 2 Unassigned Points: 5 Synthetic muscle (legs) lvl. 2 Shards: 128,600 Synthetic bones (legs) lvl. 1 Synthetic bones (arms) lvl. 1 Shadow Powers: Synthetic tendons (arms) lvl. 2 Manifestation lvl. 6 Synthetic muscle (arms) lvl. 2 Shaping lvl. 6 Epidermal plating (arms) lvl. 2 Distance lvl. 1 Epidermal plating (legs) lvl. 2 Sub-dermal plating (torso) lvl. 2 Synthetic muscle (torso) lvl. 1 Nanobot Blood Replacement