Catastrae stepped through the darkness, weary and unnerved.

The pyramid was far larger on the inside than she had anticipated, and when paired with the pain she yet felt from the burning sands, it felt long and arduous to traverse. She raised her hand again, and with a flash of red, bore a hole deeper in the stone before stepping across the rubble.

There was one other thing that scared her. She felt watched- no, she was being watched, poked, and prodded, a feeling that was all too familiar. Whatever oversaw her was intentionally making its watching known, seeking to unnerve or frustrate her.

Catastrae could see its spiritual essence all around, wafting through the darkness like a retching stench. She snarled. I need to get this over with. Some middling spirit would stand no chance against her own power, and at the moment, she didn’t see any reason to be wary.

She stepped forward again, only to fall.

She collapsed on the ground thirty feet from where she’d entered the room and stood with an annoyed sigh. She swept out her arm, looking at the spiritual essence through the darkness. “Let’s end this already!” she yelled. “I just want to go...” she trailed off, looking down. Go where? She shook her head, leaving her sentence incomplete. “So show yoursel...f...”

Suddenly, she stood in a stark white room. Three girls stood about it; One, Two, and Three- herself.

“W-what?” she muttered, confused. She recognized this place; it was, of course, a scene from her past, in the laboratory.

“Okay, girls,” Dr.Alsbane’s voice sounded from a speaker, causing the three to stand straighter. “Let’s test your physical strengths. Draedon gifted you all with the peak of biological strength, so do him a good service and show us what you can do.” Three spider-like machines crawled out of a duct in the wall, then skittered up to the three, holding a pair of bands band atop their heads. “Now put those gravity bands on your wrists and we can begin.”

One curiously took her bands and slid them around her wrists, where it then shrunk to fit them, Two robotically bent over to take theirs, and Three rolled one around in her hand for a moment, seeming bored. They both put the bands on around the same time.

“Okay, hold your arms up...” the doctor said, and once the girls did so, she continued, “Now, I’ll increase their weight to one thousand kilos. One, two...three.”

As though a rock had hit the metal floor, it creaked under the pressure as the three girls braced themselves against the intense weight of the bands.

Catastrae frowned as she shifted her hand up her staff, and kept her other hand near her enormous axe; which she had named Avalanche. “What’re you trying to do, spirit? I can feel you looking for an opportunity to strike. Are you just trying to make me let down my guard?”

She received no answer, of course. Catastrae glanced around the room, looking about for a surprise attack, but couldn’t find any indication as to where the lurking assailant might be. Eventually, she lost focus and glanced back at the scene. Nothing was happening of note; just her and her sisters bracing themselves against a slowly increasing load.

“Agh! I’ve got better things to do than wait for you!” she yelled before throwing out her arm, sending countless bolts of brimflame scattering across the room. The illusion wavered as they illuminated the ancient room, blowing holes in the sandstone around Catastrae.

Then, she felt something heavy tackle into her back, causing her to stumble forward. W-what is that?! She tried to look behind her back, wildly flinging brimflame back where she’d felt the force hit her.

In her fear, she didn’t think about where she was firing and sent herself crashing into a wall, burning her back from an explosion of flame.

She breathed hoarsely as she scrambled back to her feet, sending countless bolts of flame into the dark. Where is it!?

“You young soul...how impatient you are,” a voice suddenly said, echoing across the featureless room. “You lack so much...you have no discipline.”

“Just shut it, you damn demon!” She retorted. “Show yourself, I’ve got better things to do than this!”

She heard it cackle as another illusion shifted the room.

This time, under a domed ceiling, Three and Two sat. The area was made to look like a jungle, filled to the brim with docile plants and animals, but the white sky, the boundaries of the lab, made it clear that they had not left it.

Two stared at a tree’s flower, their face devoid of emotion as usual.

Three, remaining in silence, glanced between the flower and her older sister. “What...are you looking at?”

“The flower,” she responded.

“Why?”

The other glanced at her with a look of confusion before looking back. “I don’t know. I just like it.”

“Like it? As if you’d know what it’s like to like something.” Three retorted with crossed arms.

“You’re right. I probably don’t like it. I just feel a...compulsion to look at the flower.”

Three slowly followed to stare at the flower. Her expression grew less tense as she stared, her eyes slowly fluttering.

Catastrae followed her own gaze, staring at it. Did...she like the flower?

No, I don’t.

As she thought that, her eyes moved back to her sister.

I don’t...I...I feel a lot.

Sadness, regret, anger...but nothing like ‘love’, right?

She grimaced, then lit fire to the world, sending another barrage of flames in all directions, burning the illusion away. “Stop it with this! Let me burn you to ash!” she roared to the empty room, leaving herself breathless and exhausted from the expulsion of emotions.

The moment her eyes fluttered, weary, something wrapped around her ankle. She immidately shot at it, but before she could even see what it was, it let go. Then, something grabbed her other ankle, which she shot again, blasting yet another crater into the ground.

“W-what?” she flew upward, away from the ground, and lit the room up with fire, expunging an emotion she couldn’t identify with the attack. She didn’t understand why, but the wild, blood-red flames that lashed outward burned on the stone, dimly illuminating the room. “Just...just show yourself already...” she said with defeat, her eyes straining to remain open.

“You lack such discipline,” the scratchy voice said. “You lack diligence. You lack so much. You even lack...” she heard it chuckle. “...a soul.”

Catastrae’s eyes widened as another illusion formed in front of her. It was simply Two, staring at her blankly, standing atop thin air.

“But don’t worry. You won’t need one, once I’m done with you,” the voice continued.

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As Catastrae flew back, avoiding her sister’s gaze like the plague, Two’s head turned to look at her, expression unshifting. “Three...” she began. “Why...are you still alive? What’s the point? I can’t feel anything, so I don’t mind. Shouldn’t you mind more? After all...” She suddenly smiled the expression just as crooked and tense as it always had been. “You don’t ‘like’ to live, right?”

“S-stop it! You- You don’t know anything, you twisted spirit!” Catastrae yelled, a spiral of flame forming upward into a ball as she cast a spell she didn’t know. “Leave the past to die!” She threw the ball at the illusion, and it soared through it before hitting the wall behind, exploding into countless darts of flame. Catastrae was bombarded by her own flames as they scattered across the room, and when she looked up from her arms, raised to protect her face and now burnt, she saw the illusion had shifted.

Two yet still smiled, but a hole was burnt through her chest. Slowly, her body fell, her clothes and red hair billowing in the wind before she hit the ground. Yet Catastrae recognized the three solemn, traumatizing words that next came from the emotionless girl’s mouth before the illusion faded.

Furious, she once again wildly sent flame arcing across the room, roaring in anger.

Then, she froze. Pain surged through Catastrae’s body, but she couldn’t help but look down at what had impaled her body.

A dagger of immaterial, flickering flame seared through her heart.

Although a seemingly fatal blow had landed on her, Catastrae yet still moved. She formed a flame in her hand and swung it around, finally catching a glimpse of her attacker as they sidestepped the attack.

It was a being that seemed to be made of packed ash, purple fire billowing in place of its legs. They smirked as Catastrae struggled to remain in the air, her body and spirit failing her.

“You’re nothing more than a shell of raw energy,” it said as it easily sidestepped her wild, dying attacks. “An immature vessel for magics beyond an imbecile’s knowledge. Such rage, such sadness...” It clicked its tongue. “Unfit for such power.”

Catastrae hit the ground in a crater of her own making, her breaths hoarse. She raised a hand to attack her foe, but...

She lowered her hand. I’m a disgrace, she thought as her blood pooled beneath her wound. I want revenge but I don’t even know why, or even what I stand to gain. I feel so much anger, but why do I even care? She closed her eyes. I should just shut up already and die. Better dead than regretting every moment I’m alive.

Her wounds ached, and her heart couldn’t beat. It was the same as always.

Her vision grew cloudy...

No...I-I’m...crying? I-I don’t understand. Why...why does my chest...still burn? Why...

The djinn flaoted above her, then put a hand over her chest. It felt like her spirit was being vacuumed up, her magic being drained upward, leaving her body.

Her hand shook. I-I don’t know why, but...I’m not ready yet. I need to survive. Catastrae closed her eyes, time passing all too quickly as she tried to think. What can I do...what could I possibly do to survive? Her body raged with emotions, but they didn’t help; they weren’t what she needed right now, they merely clouded the path forward. I...have to clear my mind. I have to...to take control of myself!

Catastrae relaxed, even as her blood pooled and her power left her body, she let herself be overtaken by thought.

I...must perservere! I need to rise! I need to fight!

Her eyes shot open as she leveled a punch at the djinn, taking it by surprise and sending its body scattering as powder away. Catastrae slowly rose from the ground, pushing off raising her head.

“Just how durable is that body of yours?!” it asked as it reformed, though her strike had disrupted its spiritual energy.

“As durable as I need to be...” she be= before falling back down.

The creature shrugged, cackling. “Good. I can’t have you dying before I steal your magic away.”

D-damnit! I can’t move an inch...I need...something. My body just can’t handle this... She searched for some way to stand again and face her foe as it quickly moved to snatch more of her magic. I...have more than enough. I’ve got more magic than I know what to do with. I...I must do this!

She drew magic through her body, even as it diminished, and pulled it to her heart.

Now...to release the magic.

Catastrae opened her mouth, then as her last breath arrived, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her pent-up emotions flooded her body, exploding through it as a surge of warmth.

She used necromancy to puppet her own body, putting herself into stasis. Before the dhinn could notice what she’d done, she gripped Avalanche, ripped it from its hold, and slashed it at the creature.

She decapitated its head, but as she leaped onto her feet, splashing in her blood, it reformed.

“What!? Why will you not just die!?” it asked, reforming again.

Catastrae leaped forward, but it melded into the wall behind. Her attack still cleaved a fissure into it, however, earning herself another hit on the immaterial creature. She stepped back as it repositioned, hearing it grunt in pain. “Because I choose not to,” she responded, readying her posture.

“Such boldness will not last you long. Your magic is already mine, and what’s left will hardly keep your body together for another minute.”

“Enough to smite you,” she retorted, closing her eyes.

She directed her attention to the lingering spiritual energy, attempting to locate it. It’s spilled all across the air, like it’s everywhere at once...Or...wait. No, it’s not that! That energy isn’t the djinn, it’s a crowd! It’s using the souls of the dead to obscure its location. I just need to only look at the densest part of the energy.

She gathered more magic in her staff, readying a medium-sized bolt, then blew a hole in the stone, the attack arcing toward what she now knew was the fleeing djinn. “You think that’s enough magic to break out of your imprisonment, huh?” she asked as the explosion rattled the entire pyramid, blowing a hole far outward. That’s a sixth of what’s remaining...not even fifty seconds before I die.

She lunged through the hole before the djinn could recover, and found it attempting to burrow its way out of her sights.

“You’re slow to react!” she yelled, swinging Avalanche down into the stone. As the djinn yelled in fear, caught in the shifting rubble and frost, Catastrae burrowed after it, flying down through the broken stonework and grabbing the djinn’s very spirit like she would a throat. “You don’t know how to use my magic!” She burned its spirit with brimflame that seeped from her hand’s wounds, grimacing in pain as she struggled to keep her body yet standing despite her quickly vanishing magic.

“As though I have no power!” Catastrae was suddenly flooded by brimflame, which blew her backward into the stone behind her, coughing up blood. The djinn followed up the attack by forming a blade of red and purple fire, which soaked the souls around it up like a whirlpool, then stabbed forward.

Catastrae held out her hands in defense, blasting the flame with what magic she could muster in time, and barely managing to deflect the attack away from her body. It burned the stone behind her to nothing in an instant, easily creating a crevice the size of a large room. Fourty seconds. She swept Avalanche toward the djinn’s body, but they paried the axe with the blade.

It cut through the axe’s icy handle like butter. “You stood a chance when you walked in here, but you already fumbled the ball, witch! Face your futility!”

With gritted teeth, Catastrae’s hands flashed forward, grabbing the blade of the axe before it had even fallen an inch, then she chucked it at the djinn, the blade driving into its face, causing it to once more explode into ash upon impact. The axe blade clattered to the wall behind it as its head reformed, its spirit struggling to remain together from the numerous physical attacks. “Gah! That won’t be nearly enough to finish me. Take this!”

Catastrae leaped back as it swung its sword again, but this time the blade turned into a crescent of flame that expanded outward, lacerating a significant cut into Catastrae’s torso. It swung the blade again, and Catastrae was forced to block it with her own flame, blowing a hole through the attack and stumbling away.

Twenty left...at most. I can hardly move.

“Allow me to show you the power you gave to me!” It raised the sword to the sky, and with it, a torrent of souls formed whisps of brimflame, spinning above the sword and burning the stone to ash along with them. “Let your final moments be drowned in the gifted fires. Die!”

The fire swung down upon Catastrae as she readied the culmination of what magic was left in her body, desperately holding out her staff in one hand, and an open hand in the other.

As the end fell, fire suddenly blasted from her hand.

Two seconds.

She saw through its gusto. It was only a mask to the fading resilience of its spirit. Just a little more!

“That will hardly be enough to stop me!” it yelled, the fire falling upon the witch.

Her own brimflame contacted the fire as the djinn confidently blocked it with the whirlpool of flame, and in a moment, it was swallowed whole, only halting the storm for the briefest of moments.

Then, it paused as something hit the evil spirit from behind, blowing away its arms, then flew past of the flame and into Catastrae’s hand. With what remained of Avalanche’s blade, Catastrae flew under the storm, then swung her left hand, cleaving through the djinn, and past its catastrophic blow.

It struggled to reform, stumbling left and right as the torrent of souls in its blade spiraled out of its control. “You! You aren’t...aren’t going to kill me so easily, witch...I-I won’t fall just as I’ve found my key to freedom!”

Catastrae’s body lost all vigor as the last of her magic left her body. She saw the djinn reform again, its blade dropping as its spirit nearly scattered into energy.

“Ha! Hahaha!” it laughed. “You’re out of magic. Your necromancy can’t-”

Catastrae leaped forward, her body moving with the only strength that was left in it, and sliced her axe at the spirit again, cutting it from the head-down.

“Y-you...” it began. “C-can’t...”

An explosion of magic blasted Catastrae into the wall, but while it was a thunderous explosion, she held out her hands, and caught what magic she could, absorbing it into her body. “Yes...” she said with a smile, triumphantly surging emotion and necromantic energies through her body, “I can, actually. But thanks for the reminder to remember to bring healing potions next time.”