Chapter 41: Chapter 39

"Alice!"

Images, thoughts, and ideas flashed by in a blur. 

 A Truth Anchor would work. Yes. Can't let them finish. We would stand no chance.

A pair of black and brown rabbits ducked to the side in my mind space as the spell took effect.

Spell routine successful. Realm shift negated. Counterattack imminent. Lethal force if left unmitigated. 

An explosion. I soared. Survive. Must survive. Recover.

A blurry silhouette of a regal woman with pink eyes and silver hair stood in front of me. It didn't seem real at first: just some blurry illusion from my imagination. Yet no sooner did I try to dismiss her as such than her appearance grew clearer briefly before my eyes, and I felt her brush my hair back as she stooped to level in my face. 

This girl's eyes reminded me of someone. That much I remembered with certainty, but something else about her touch struck a chord deep inside my soul.

My sense of self and ego stirred. I called out to her.

But there was no answer. She stepped up and away from me and gave a brilliant and proud smile.

"Come on. Stay with me, girl!"

I opened my eyes groggily as I felt an urgent tug on my chest. Then, I felt a series of light, rapid slaps on my face as the pitter-patter drops of raindrops fell on my face. Everything else — all my senses, flooded back in with it. The smell of smoke from nearby fires, the taste of salty water-soaked dirt and gravel in my mouth, and the sound of rattling thunder and weapons clashing in the distance.

My mind started to clear as the world began to shape around me, and the warmth of consciousness returned.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw a familiar silhouette standing directly over me. A red-haired woman with cat ears was shaking my shoulders with a concerned look as I slumped at an awkward angle against a wall. I felt a small wave of relief wash over me when Dinah looked down at me and asked, "Thank goodness. Are you okay? Are you lucid? Can you hear me?"

"Y-yeah," I answered. "What happened? Where are the others? How did I get here?"

Without a second word, she gently helped me peel my head off the ground and helped me to my feet.

"You started bombarding those two... harlequins with a massive golden light," she explained. "The two of them sent you sailing over this building, and it looked like you used something up to cushion the blow. I couldn't make out much from afar, though."

I blinked several times, trying to process what had happened as a tight sensation of nausea filled my chest. My mind was fogged over and fuzzy… I was speaking to my 'other' self, and then—

"I think... I don't... I'm not sure what happened. I remember seeing them casting a spell after we escaped out of Haigha's apartment, but that's all." I replied carefully, swooning as I tried to gain secure footing.

Dinah stared at me thoughtfully before answering my questions, "I'm glad you're still in one piece in any case. As for the others, well. Another man ran off with Haigha on his back while Lori stayed behind to fight them."

She winced in pain, grabbing her ribs out of reflex as she turned to peer around the corner. Without a word, I rushed to follow her and walked out into the street. What greeted me was utter chaos; several buildings were on fire or heavily damaged as far as I could see in this part of the city.

I had a throbbing, painful migraine, and I strongly suspected it was related to whatever magic I'd been using. The taste of bile rose in the back of my throat, making me feel like I was about to throw up. Worse still, the 'rain' I felt on my face wasn't rain but water dripping off a building into a gutter. Either way, my body felt exhausted, but I needed to get back out there. I could still feel the swirl of mana thrumming in my body — no doubt in response to whatever fel magic had activated Alice's magic.

Other me. If you can hear me, I could use your help now... I thought to myself.

In an effort of will and exertion that almost left me trembling on my knees with fatigue, I pushed myself forward past Dinah. I began to realize pure mana had been gathering inside me, even as I peeled myself off the ground. With every passing second, I could sense more and more mana gathering within me — and with it, a small but significant surge of... understanding?

I gasped, a sharp shiver running down my spine from how fast it built up. Images of countless hours in a school courtyard flooded my mind. Thousands of casts, thousands of hours in a library by lamplight. Proficiency and mastery born from practice.

Mastery that would be borrowed and fleeting as an alien power flooded in me.

"Alice, we should go find hel-" 

I took the raw, unformed mana and shaped it. With a surge of focus and concentration, I flew.

It was a complex combination on paper, but I understood how to do it perfectly. An invisible hand helped me weave a weight manipulation spell, and pure mana welled from my chest to condense and manipulate the wind currents around me. A spell graced the core of my soul as I felt mana flow to my eyes, enhancing my vision.

I flew up into the sky, feeling the winds pushing and pulling my hair wildly. Glancing several avenues over to where I last saw the others, I immediately saw Lori hopping back up the street. She swung her sword — which she'd converted into that weird cleaver form again, to desperately fend off a swarm of four short spinning blades in the air that tracked her as she danced backward.

Attacks came from above and below my sister, and she deftly weaved in between to narrowly avoid the gyrating blades.

I could see the panic in her eyes as she parried another pair of swords, trying desperately to keep herself away from the blades. The woman with the enormous mace swung it over her head, smashing the ground in front of Lori as she vaulted to the side with one hand. I flinched in surprise as my reinforced vision caught a faint shake and tremor in Lori's arms while she stood back up into a fighting stance.

Lori's body was covered in nicks and scuffs, and the scratches on her arms and legs were visibly adding up. She'd come out tonight wearing a simple white linen shirt and pants, but in the few minutes I'd been taken out of action, her clothes had been shredded in multiple places, and she was bleeding. Her short blue hair was also a tangled, sweaty mess.

One thing was clear from witnessing the scene. Lori was losing. Badly.

That made me swallow a bit in trepidation. Even though Lori was an extremely high-level fighter, these two gave her a run for her money.

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A loud ringing sound filled my ears, and I groaned as I stopped to catch my breath from a dizzy spell. I watched the woman strike again with a thunderous swing of her mace toward Lori's midsection, and Lori barely blocked the blow with her greatsword. Her parry only managed to catch half of the harlequin's strike, and she deflected the rest of the swing to the side. Her sword visibly vibrated with the collision, leaving a resounding clang against the metal surface. A thin trickle of blood ran down from the corner of her mouth as she swept the female harlequin's leg out and quickly jumped away. 

Lori's assailant immediately regained her footing and closed the gap with another loaded swing. Her brother stayed about twenty yards back, observing stoically as his swords swerved around for another pass at Lori.

Even with the speed and agility I knew she was capable of, Lori could not dodge the flurry of attacks coming her way. If anything, it even looked like the harlequin had a speed advantage over her. Her movements grew more erratic and frantic with each passing moment, and soon enough, the woman with the hammer began to charge toward her with a wild grin. It was only a matter of time before she landed a clean hit on Lori, ending it all.

I shivered in dread at the thought of something that terrible happening — especially after what we'd gone through together. Then, that feeling of dread turned into resolve.

I wasn't going to let that happen. Not by any stretch if I could help it. I'd committed to this — it was do or die.

Energy poured forth from the depths of my soul, and suddenly, I surged forth in the air. I'd flown several dozen yards over the ground in a few seconds at a breakneck speed. As I soared over Lori and her assailants, she turned around wide-eyed, looking up at me in surprise. Suddenly, Lori released a short, breathless gasp as I stopped above them.

I shot the two harlequins standing in front of her a cold, scathing glare.

Then, I snapped my fingers.

A thunderous snapping noise reverberated off the walls as several more small cracks appeared in the cobblestones, and I could hear the sound of screaming from somewhere below. The four swords flying through the air around my sister froze in an instant as my own spell overpowered the tightly-bound enchantments that fueled them, and they fell uselessly on the ground, encased in ice.

Without letting them recover from my entrance, I immediately followed up by sending a tidal wave of frost across the street at Lori's assailants. The two of them were still staring up at me with shock on their faces. A billowing storm of ice and cold mist shot forward faster than a speeding train, coating the ground and stone around them like a spewing nitrogen tank as it washed over them. Both were flash-frozen in an instant.

I felt a keen sense of magical awareness around me, almost as if I had a sixth sense for mana. The harlequins' energy signatures were deep within the ice, and I could feel an alien power building within. So, I immediately followed up by lifting them out of the construct in a house-sized ball of ice, billowing mist, and cobblestone and tossed it above the rooftops with my mind.

"What the!" Lori yelled. "Alice?!"

Wordlessly, I focused my concentration and pulled a pair of building-sized slabs of bedrock out of the ground, slamming them together into the ball with enough force to shatter and pancake the dense magical ice. Then, I peeled away layers of the bedrock to create sharp stalagmites. Forcing the jagged slabs together, I twisted the slabs around the pair in circular motions like a cheese grater until I'd crushed everything into a compact sphere. All of this came as naturally as breathing to me. It was as if I'd drilled these hundreds of times, which I probably did, given what I'd just gleaned from the power pouring out of my core.

The building feeling of nausea and vertigo from putting my soul through so much strain was hard to endure, but I had to see it through. I gritted my teeth against the discomfort and continued casting spell on top of spell as quickly as possible. 

With a quick wave of my hand, six giant stone spikes erupted from the ground and pierced through the ball of ice and stone. Without leaving anything to chance, I snapped my fingers again and ignited the pressurized gas within.

The sphere cracked apart after a brief, almost anti-climactic implosion that made the world around me rumble. 

Then, all was silent as steaming mist rushed out of the makeshift iron maiden I'd created. It spilled out in wispy clumps to flood and freeze over the streets. 

I floated there, breathing heavily as I struggled to catch my breath. The migraine I'd felt earlier was overpowering me, and I could barely stay oriented and conscious. 

That had taken more out of me in a couple of seconds than I ever could have thought.

"Hells, what were they teaching you up there in the academy?" Lori muttered, snapping me out of my trance. "Did your memory return, Alice?"

Blinking to clear the cobwebs, I answered, "Not quite. I'll explain later." 

I immediately dropped back down and rushed over to attend to her wounds. She was in pretty bad shape, and I looked around for something I could use for makeshift bandages.

A loud and angry shout suddenly caused my head to snap back toward the wreckage I'd created.

"I can't believe it! I can't believe you did that!" a woman's voice shrieked in exasperation. "That's the second time you've ruined my fun in one night, you little brat!"

I swallowed nervously as I watched the woman and her brother emerge from the hazy white mist. They were both a bloody mess; their clothes were torn off of them in several places, and they looked like walking horror shows. She was covered in gaping wounds from which blood was leaking profusely from numerous openings across her body, and I could see her bones sticking through in multiple places as her burnt and broken forearm hung off her elbow by a single tendon.

"How are they still standing after that?!" Lori yelled in disbelief.

"Dumith, shall we take this fight a tad more seriously? What say you, brother of mine?" the girl growled as she adjusted her grip on the mace. She reached over and popped a dislocated shoulder back in with a loud pop.

"I believe it's time that we kill them and finish our business here, Deemith," the now-identified Dumith replied calmly, stepping over the shattered remains of a lamp post. He wasn't looking any better than his sister — in fact, he looked like his intestines were partially hanging out, but the two of them held themselves with complete confidence. "Alice Liddell. Your seal has been quite fascinating to work around. I should like to study it later to fully undo it — but its time we dispel this... handicap you've imposed."

The two summoned a bright, orange energy in their hands and unleashed a massive wave of energy at each other simultaneously. It was almost too much for my eyes, so I quickly shut my lids and tried desperately to focus. The now-identified Dumith weaved his hands like he was controlling a set of puppets, and a matrix of golden lights shaped in the form of knots appeared around each of them. With a yanking motion, he untangled the knots, leaving a loose weave of light around the pair. The golden lights faded from view as he cracked his neck.

Then, the two of them began to twist and contort. Their bodies warped, and bones rapidly began to mend and unbreak. The massive, gashing wounds left by my grinding stone attacks had left vanished without a trace, and deep, sickening black burn marks faded into pale white skin. 

The pair had returned to complete fighting condition in seconds — save for minor burns or scrapes here and there that didn't seem to bother them much.

I stared at them for a good five seconds, mouth agape, before uttering a single word that summed up all of my feelings about what I had just witnessed.

"Fuck."

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