My eyes lock back on to my target. Fluffy’s snout is contorted in an infuriating smirk. I continue the chase. She is weak and slow, so I come up to her fast. I pay close attention to my spatial sense. I am ready if she tries to trick me again.
As expected, I again hear a loud pinging noise, akin to metal striking the ground, but this time I know it for what it is: A trick from the devilish fox before me. I ignore the illusory sound and lunge towards her.
As I close in on her flank, she once again attempts to use her tail as bait, the fluffy appendage acting as a pseudo-shield for her more vulnerable hind legs. But I am not aiming for her rear.
I snarl, some of my saliva hitting her flank, and then I pump my muscles ever stronger to aim not for her legs, but her neck. She yips and makes a hard right, breaking from her pre-determined trail and moving away from the wall she was originally aiming for.
The blue trail behind her does not abate, so I assume the minor setback to the ritual will not be devastating, but I also think knocking her off course won’t be consequence-free for her. Sure enough, she can barely concentrate on avoiding me, as she spends a touch too long focusing on running around the room in her set path.
I keep close behind her but become slightly distracted as my attention moves back to my soul-bond with Addie, she is sending me a pulse of magic— attempting to send her dad out into Realmspace I am sure. I reciprocate, the magic sent back to her. It echoes back down our bond in a familiar distorted twisting shape attempting to send Addie out.
I stumble for a moment, and to my surprise, the magic rebounds off me and hits Addie, to no effect.
I notice that due to focusing on the magic, I have stopped in the middle of the room—my quarry momentarily forgotten. I renew my efforts and sprint forward to dispatch my foe. I strain my legs and claws harder for traction against the stone floor in my haste. I do my best to ignore Addie and leave the magic to her, but it is difficult to continue chasing down the Slyfox with this pulsing magic between Addie and me growing.
Addie’s accumulated power becomes a torrent even as I near Fluffy once again. I push the flow of strength to the back of my mind, basically turning the constant cycling of magic over to my subconscious mind as I try to focus.
No warrior can win a battle of two fronts alone, even me. While our magic also relies on my reciprocation, Addie will have to make do with controlling it nearly by herself, so I can focus on catching Fluffy.
The world becomes slightly strange, as I feel concentrated power leaking out from Addie. She barely contains it while it continues to grow. I know this much magical energy is impossible for Addie to maintain, and as a consequence, it starts warping the environment. The basement no longer seems like a perfect cube with four walls, but instead seems to distort and twist in minor but inconvenient ways. The wall to my left seems more sharply angled than before, and the back wall feels further away from me than it should be. Even the floor seems to dip and climb ever so slightly, easily throwing off one’s footing if not careful.
To my benefit, it seems Fluffy can’t see the changes to space with her mundane senses. She yelps as she finds her body suddenly rotated. I, of course, can see the twist in space that caused it, my spatial sense easily making note of the world around me. With her unable to orient I huff out a guttural laugh as I close the distance.
Capitalizing on her mistake, I am on her in moments. It is easy to aim for her neck now that she is facing towards me. In a last desperate attempt, she skitters on the floor, not having enough time to get proper traction her legs splay in all directions and she barely moves at all. I pounce, feeling the moment of victory upon me. She whimpers as she sees her inevitable defeat. Out of desperation, she attempts one final futile time to use her tail as a shield, but it does not matter. I dig my claws trailing into her back and bat her tail away with the side of my head. A tiny trickle of blood fills my mouth with the salty taste of copper as my jaws close around her neck. Not enough to kill, but enough to incapacitate and keep her from escaping.
This time, I do not release my hold on her. My earlier mistake has not been forgotten. Addie would surely be upset with me if I let Fluffy go free again.
I sense Addie’s intent shift, and then she opens her eyes. She stares directly at Christena. In naught but a moment, then, Christena and Addie completely vanish. Now that Addie’s magic has been enacted, large pockmarks are scored out of the ground— perfect scoops cut out from the walls and floor. The angles of the walls snap back into their proper right angles, the room again seeming like a perfect cube. The air seems to woosh, and I feel a bit dizzy as I adjust to the room and floor regaining their normal dimensions from the twisted mess they had been only a moment ago.
My eyes move over to the center of the basement floor. I look for Addie’s father. Fluffy whimpers as I continue to trap her in my jaws.
Oh.
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Addie split her brain in two. One half of her mind focused completely on her spatial sense and the world around her. The other half of her mind continued to relay the overwhelming storm of magic pulsing between her and Squishy. She thought her brain would melt under the strain.
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Despite the difficulty, Addie managed to use her spatial sense and locate. Luckily, she only had to maintain that split focus for a moment as she leveraged her spatial sense to aim her building magic. Now, with a target to rush towards, Addie’s magic burst forward, impossible to stop. It moved faster than Addie could think. One moment, she was looking around the room spatially, the next her magic already finished being unleashed.
Christena seemed surprised too, based on the panicked expression her face contorted into. In less than a single breath, Addie’s magic locked onto Christena and violently ejected her out of the basement, forcing her into Realmspace. What Addie didn’t expect, was the way the overload from the event also sucked herself through a tear in reality.
With her feet on solid ground and her magic nearly all expended, some part of Addie’s magic seemed to click within her soul in a way it never had before. Realmspace seemed to hold on to Addie, keeping her steady and firmly stabilized within the alternate realm. A far cry from how Realmspace normally tried to eject her as quickly as it could. With the remnants of Addie’s built-up magic, she felt as though she could stay in Realmspace forever and Realmspace still wouldn’t protest. There was only a slight problem.
Her soul didn’t just lock herself down into Realmspace, she could feel Christena still being targeted by her residual magic, too.
“You made a serious mistake there, little Addie.” Christena’s voice reached Addie from all directions, emanating from no discernable source. The total darkness of Realmspace seemed to almost amplify her voice. “You see, now you are trapped in this place, alone, with me.” Christena’s final whisper of a word tickled against Addie’s right ear as she felt Christena’s breath on the side of her head. If the darkness bothered Christena, she made no tells of it.
With a jerk, Addie whipped her head to the right, in the direction of Christena’s last whispered breath, but she wasn’t there. Nothing was only darkness. Addie frantically looked all around her, trying to spot Christena anywhere, but around her was nothing but the empty stone expanse and brooding darkness of Realmspace.
A primal fear response welled up inside Addie. A tiny voice in the back of her mind told her to use her spatial sense, that her normal eyesight was useless, here, but it was so difficult. Addie’s breath came in and out with panicked gulps, as though sucking down the air faster might save her somehow. Her eyes darted around, side to side trying to spot any hint of moment, any sign that Christena was nearby. Addie remembered what it felt like the last time she was cornered and Alone with that woman.
Soon, Addie heard Christena’s voice again from behind, “Don’t bother turning around, now. I’m already gone.” Before Addie fully registered her words, she had already spun completely to check behind her. Christena wasn’t there. Addie whimpered ever so slightly, just enough for her to hear herself.
Addie tried to send a message through to Squishy. No matter the distance, Addie had always been able to reach him. Even now, Addie felt that her soul-bond was intact, Squishy an impossible distance away, but also right next to her. She sent a simple message to him, through their bond. “Help.” In response, she felt Squishy’s soul react, but she didn’t get a message back, almost like he wanted to come but had no way to, stuck on the other side of reality against his desire to help his bonded human.
Now truly alone, Addie’s heart rate picked up, and she felt a cold sweat forming around her. Addie remembered the times she ran to her parents’ bedroom after a horrible nightmare. She remembered not being able to wake up, to escape from the haunting monsters created by a child’s subconscious. She remembered her dad tucking her into her blankets at night, the safety afforded by a parent’s embrace. She remembered the panic of being alone in the dark after waking up in the middle of the night, the safety of her blankets barely keeping the darkness at bay. Mostly, Addie remembered how it felt to be alone and scared.
Being in Realmspace with Christena was worse than that. Addie had nowhere to wake up to. No father to tuck her into bed, and no mother to find down the hall. Addie remembered the forced calm she felt while in the witch’s house—the panic brewing under the surface of her conscious mind. At least that was subtle. Here, her panic fully blew out into dilated pupils and dripping sweat.
But Addie remembered how she broke free from that witch’s influence. Addie remembered that she had won. Won a battle of wills against a powerful bonded pair and escaped both the woman’s mental influence and her tree’s physical presence. She remembered staying calm underneath an impossible deer. She remembered learning to navigate the forest and develop her spatial awareness. She remembered how far she had come.
With a deep breath, Addie closed her eyes and shut down her physical senses. She closed her mind’s source of instinctual fear by blocking out sight and sound. Addie focused on her spatial sense. Realmspace exploded around her in all its simple glory. A radius of awareness opened up around her, and within that bubble defined by her spatial sense, Addie knew every micro movement that happened anywhere within her vicinity.
But most importantly, now that she focused on her spatial sense instead of her mundane senses, Addie found Christena.
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Squishy looked for Addie’s dad in the middle of the stone floor of the basement. He stood tall, no part of him obviously injured.
“Are you alright? My lady worried for you.” Squishy asked earnestly.
“If you are attempting to communicate with me, sitting there with a funny look on your face won’t be enough,” Addie’s father said with mirth, “Here, I’ll have Dorple translate for us.”
The strange long-eared rabbit thing hopped off of Mr. Lomain’s shoulder and scampered over to Squishy, who proceeded to eye him skeptically. As if the scaled rabbit was suspicious in some way. Squishy hesitatingly allowed the odd scaly thing to approach.
Now, with Squishy’s hesitant and admittedly fragile permission, Dorple laid his body down near Squishy’s front left paw. Then, he rested one of his long ears down against it, gently touching Squishy’s paw.
“There, now I should be able to hear you.” Mr. Lomain announced with an introductory smile.
“I am glad you appear unharmed, though I worry for my lady. Do you require any aid before I rush off to Addie? I do not believe you are hurt.” Squishy declared telepathically, as the worry in his tone bled through. He could feel his thoughts travel through Dorple to Mr. Lomain, the process quite similar to the way he sent his thoughts to Addie through their bond.
Mr. Lomain sat down next to Squishy’s spot on the floor. “Don’t worry about Addie.”
Squishy’s head turned towards Mr. Lomain with a bewildered expression. Nothing about that sentence made sense.
“What? Don’t look at me with that face! Christena practically played the role of Addie’s second mother! She helped raise that girl, you know?” Mr. Lomain crossed his arms against his chest as he seemed to fall into a reminiscence of the past, a small and gentle smile on his face.
“I think I am still unsure what you mean by all this. Christena is evil, no? She attempted to murder you.” Squishy emphasized, confused. Mr. Lomain didn’t comment, his smile just turning into a mysterious smirk. “But it doesn’t look like you are going to elaborate?” Squishy mostly thought aloud.
For a moment, Squishy’s soul pulsed, and he heard Addie calling out to him for help. He perked his ears up and prepared to jump into Realmspace.
A hand gently touched down against his back, causing Squishy to bare his teeth in a threat display, and rip his head around to look at the offender.
Mr. Lomain sat still, completely relaxed, one hand resting on Squishy’s flank. “Leave it to Addie. Trust her to win.”