The beast watched her as she stuck out a hand toward it. The sound of the scene before them faded into silence, and they were left in a still, black vacuum. She steeled her expression and made sure her feet relinquished no ground. For the first time, she felt in control of her own Mind Palace. The place was and always would be foreign, never a place of her making or at her disposal. But she felt less like a prisoner and more like a guest.

The beast slowly reared its head to her level, and she swallowed her saliva in anticipation. A strike, perhaps. She wouldn’t put it past the beast; she had seen it in action before.

Bow.

She hesitated for a moment, the request catching her off guard. The beast kept its head level, refusing to retract its offer or settle things mutually. Even if it were to accept her request, it would have to do so on its terms. It was the original bearer of her powers, the original life. Iris found no way to reason with it, nor did she think it was wise to try. There were things more important than her own pride at stake.

She got on one knee and dipped her head, keeping her hand outstretched.

“Lend me your help.”

She waited in silence, feeling the beast against the tips of her fingers. They grew sensitive, tingling as though she’d flinch away at any moment. Iris kept still, doing everything in her power to refuse her base human instincts to retract her hand.

They will eat you too.

She felt a burning against her fingers, but held still nonetheless. The burning got worse as it travelled from her wrist down her arms. Sounds of pain began to escape her gritted teeth as the sensation crawled along her upper back. It ate away at her skin, tearing cuts through it. It inched across her shoulder, arm, and eventually the tips of her other hand.

She opened her eyes and found herself marked as Evalyn was. The head of the beast adorned her right hand, and its tail the left. Up each arm and across her back, its body connected the two. Faint trails of purple blood still seeped from the cuts, residue of her first true gift. It flowed, much like the purple matter now did. What was once hampered by a mental barrier, viscous like honey, now flowed like crystal clear water.

She could see it, every curve and crevice in her armour. She could picture it clamping down across her body and hardening like freshly cast iron. The silhouette of a divine knight unshackled from the imperfect human body. She could feel the weight of her hair vanish as it materialised and became real. Her left hand, the mark of the tail, began to glow.

Greaves and Cuisses that curved elegantly, alien-like up each leg, adorned with the beast's scales. Her breastplate travelled lightly up her stomach and reinforced itself around her chest, where the head of the beast made its home across an ultra-dense disk, the sink for all unused matter. Much like Evalyn’s, her rebrace, vambrace and gauntlet formed with jagged, knifepoint edges, each curving like the tooth of a rabid animal.

Her helmet became clear to her at the last moment. A blank face with two eye slits, surrounded by the maws of the beast itself. It would not be the one eaten in this life, and her helmet would be its symbol.

She stood to her full height, her armoured figure dominating the space in the small medical tent. The crying soldier was but a distant memory, although one that she would not let slip her mind. For now, the individual in front of her was her main target.

Wesper remained still, barely looking up to meet Iris’s gaze.

“Just because you pull the same stunt as the Wishbearer doesn’t mean we’re on the same level,” he seethed. “You’re bait.”

The world began to dissolve around them, reacting in step with his anger.

“All you are is bait.”

The world fell apart, leaving in its wake a familiar setting. The neverending halls and lobbies of Workar Tower, a zoo for the most dangerous of entities. She was close, only one division away from his true Mind Palace. She was getting to him, deep under his skin yet not deep enough.

“So act like bait,” Wesper seethed, standing up and stepping backwards. Iris swung a punch at him, but his body disappeared into thin air. The infinitely repeating pillars stood before her and, with it, a tense silence. She looked around, eyeing her surroundings for the direction of his first attack.

The ceiling.

Like a printing press, it came down, and it came down hard. Iris instinctively fashioned two purple pillars either side of her from the disc of material in her chest. She held them upright, her muscles straining under the weight. She could feel the markings across her left arm burning as her magic was tested to breaking point.

She watched as the ceiling around her collapsed, merging perfectly with the floor. Keeping it from collapsing onto her was no use; she had to punch her way through. Evalyn had done so with simple pillars, but Iris’s weren’t even making a dent. She’d have to tear apart the magic and destroy it from the inside out as she had done before.

The markings on her right arm began to burn, and she saw the beast out of the corner of her eye unravel from nothing. It was segmented like a wooden toy, held together with ball joints, attached to fading strings.

It was a puppet, one she could control.

She willed it upwards, giving it a target and commanding it to destroy everything in its path. The puppet leapt to the ceiling, opening its maw and sinking its teeth into it, ripping it apart like worn fabric. A hole opened, and Iris let the opening fall around her.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Office space. Another floor of Workar tower. Desks with file organisers, typewriters and lamps continued in perpetuity and all directions. The air was musky with a hint of sawdust, and the swinging overhead lights barely illuminated the floor.

Iris heard a noise. An echoed, alien clicking. The first came from directly behind her, then another from her left, then her right. Spirits of some kind: nasty ones, no doubt. They’d hunt her down if she stood still and chase her if she ran.

“I don’t have time for this,” Iris muttered. “Keep tearing; we’ll get to him eventually.”

The puppet took her command without quarrel and began thrashing at the fabric of reality. It dragged its jaws through space and opened gateways into new ones. Sewers, forests, warehouses, cities.

The first protest came in the form of a crackling red bolt of magic, a scarlet glow whizzing through the darkness. Iris decided to test her armours true durability, so she stuck out her palm. She willed her gauntlet to stay unbreakable, to not move under any circumstance.

The bolt collided with her armour, exploding with a powerful shockwave that sent desks, paper and typewriters flying. Iris’s hand flew backwards, but her arm remained unharmed.

Room for improvement.

She noticed a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye and readied a spear. Regardless of whether the Spirit was real or not, a blunt one would unfortunately not suffice. She aimed and willed her armour to throw it as fast as possible. Her arm moved at lightning speed, releasing the javelin like a speeding arrow. The spear flew past another red bolt, and Iris traded blows with the unknown Spirit in the next instant.

She heard a blood-curdling scream while incurring no damage herself. Success.

The clicks grew louder and more frequent. An army would descend upon her soon, hungry for fresh prey.

She turned to her puppet, which had torn tens of holes in the fabric, each with a different exit. She scanned every single one, looking for something that would get her closer to Alis. Anything. Any sight, smell, hint of a clue that could get her closer.

Magic, a kind she knew intimately. She could sense her magic from the other side of a portal. Iris singled it out and bolted for it, foregoing caution and diving through, her puppet close behind.

Her dive ended in a role, and she immediately stood up and took a stance. She took in her surroundings, scanning the terrain to get any bearing.

Grass plains, green threads that crawled up to her ankles and azure sky that seemed to stretch forever. Mountains, far enough away to be coated in a blue sheen. It was too familiar. She turned around and found a small white cottage. Planks, all coated in lightly peeling alabastrine white and open windows welcoming the wind.

“No.”

She began to run, her head unable to remain level enough to consider a faster way to get there. Wesper knew about her home somehow. How did he know? Who had he told?

She bounded onto the veranda and threw the doors open, the weight of her armour heavy on the ageing floorboards. Not a sound greeted her, not even a creak. It was uncanny, as though it were a display furniture set arranged exactly like her home. The world went quiet as she stepped through. Bits and pieces were out of place, the walls didn’t feel right, and the light didn’t reflect the same way it always would. She wasn’t home, but that was even more terrifying. She passed through the living room and moved towards her bedroom.

She hesitated at the door, not daring to let her armour fade. Another door to open, and this time she felt utterly out of her own depth in her own domain, the exact opposite of her Mind Palace. She opened it and found Alis lying in her bed.

“Alis!” she cried, running to the bedside. His body was beaten to a pulp, bruised and cut from head to toe. His arm was broken, at least Iris thought it was. His eyes weren’t open, but he was breathing.

“Alis!” she cried again, tapping his face with her gauntlet. “Alis wake up, hey!”

She kept on going until his breathing faltered. His eyelids slowly opened despite the bruising, and he looked at her through the sheen of blood across his eyes. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was her.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her.

“We’ll get you to a hospital okay? I’ll take the blame for everything, I’ll say it was my—”

The shaking of his head arrested her mid-sentence, and he struggled to let out any words.

“I’m sorry. I tried.”

His eyes closed once more, and his breathing slowed.

“How did you get here.”

Iris swivelled around, standing to her full height and shielding Alis with her body. Wesper stood in the doorway, relaxed demeanour utterly destroyed. His hair hung in loose strands, and his suit was crinkled and ripped.

“I put him here to keep him busy, now why the fuck are you here?!”

His face twisted into itself as he tried desperately to control his breathing. His head shifted downwards, noticing Iris’s puppet coiling around her legs.

“I tore my way in here,” Iris said. “To kill you.”

“Kill…me?” Wesper smiled. “Then do it! Come on! I’m right here!”

….

“The Wishbearer wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in my head if she got the chance to! So come on, kill me!”

Iris did nothing. “I can’t kill you yet.”

“Too bad.”

Chains leapt out at her from all directions, ensnaring her body and binding her limbs. Without a command, her puppet got to work, clamping its jaws on the chains and tearing through the magic as if it were fabric. In less than a second, Iris was free.

Wesper stared, genuinely astonished. He began to scoff. Scoffs turned to laughter, and laughter turned to cackling as the room’s four walls fell away around them.

Chains attacked her and Alis relentlessly as the three began to fall into the black void in unison.

“You’re it!” he said as Iris grabbed Alis, shielding him as the chains continued to leap out at them. “You’re what we’ve been looking for!”

Iris looked down to find a floor of infinite spikes, polished metal ready to skewer whatever's path it interrupted. She waved her hand, creating a mat of purple that caught them safely.

“You exist!” the crazed man continued to ramble. Iris faced him, forming a bladed edge a hundred metres long and swinging it in his direction. The cleaver sliced him in half, and yet he still kept on cackling.

“They were right! They were right all along!”

Flames. Flames from flamethrowers she couldn’t see. Her puppet took point, coiling around her and nullifying the magic.

More chains lashed out at her, more spikes and more flames. Bullets, instruments of torture, hostile geometry, anything and everything denoting and residing in shelter. The entire world was at his fingertips, and it was all bearing down on her. Her puppet struggled at the volume no matter how hard it tried.

She was holding it back. Without its strength, without her strength, it couldn’t do anything. She watched Wesper through the chaos, seething with desperation. She could reach out, reach out and kill him, but it would only be one body.

She was running out of options fast. She clung onto her unconscious friend with all her might, desperate to keep feeling his pulse, his breath against her helmet.

“You’re the last piece! You’re the saviour they've been waiting for!”

She squinted her eyes and uttered something she had resorted to in the past. Something that she could not help but say. Save me.

She gripped Alis’s weak body as her puppet tore one final hole into space.

She needed her knight in shining armour more than ever.