Chương 124: 37 - MIRRORS, ECHOES, REFLECTIONS

The rain slowly started to clear. The ground around the Hunter's mansion began to crack and fizzle. The building itself was still under lockdown, steel shields covering all the windows. Everyone inside heard the ruckus, but no one could get out to see it. The soldiers outside the building, weathering the storm with their rain ponchos, kept their distance. Their commander was in their ear, telling them never to interfere with Corlander without express permission.

"How much you must hate me to be this determined to kill me." The man rose after healing the mark on his face left by Vienna's hand with his own healing loot. He was looking at Tyene, who stood firmly behind his attacker, who seethed, pulsing with rage. It was only seconds before she launched herself for another attack. Corlander had decided, however, to react calmly this time. She was a beast at this point, using none of the tactics she had been trained in.

He searched for the reflex loot in his mind and resteeled his body. This time, when she attacked, he dodged easily. Though the fury of her attacks seemed to shatter the air around them, he was still able to see through them. But he didn't attempt to hit her back, knowing anything besides a killing blow would hardly stun her; instead, he learned and waited for her to use the breadth of her ability. Tyene watched on intently, several yards away from the action, never letting her eyes leave Corlander.

The mirror loot worked in a very specific way. While she could copy any of his abilities, it worked like a storage system. And it only stored one power at a time. If she saw a power, she could keep it for however long she chose, but as soon as she copied another, the first would be gone. One at a time. She couldn't switch freely like Corlander could. So she needed to watch for the most opportune loot to steal from him.

Right now, while they were operating in this space and Corlander could fly freely, his gravity loot was the most optimal. But that wouldn't get her close enough to kill him. She needed something stronger. So she watched and waited, while keeping Vienna light on her feet.

"Come on. Give me something I can use, you old bastard." Corlander took to the sky, keeping Tyene in the corner of his sight. While Vienna could follow him, Tyene was manipulating gravity to push her through the air instead of his levitation loot. That meant Vienna wasn't in control of herself in the air. He flew under one of her strikes, positioning himself between her and Tyene. Then the earth underneath Tyene's feet began to erupt in several pillars, threatening to throw her into the sky.

She leaped out of the way only for another one to push her a hundred feet into the raining sky. She stopped herself in midair, causing the rainwater to float aimlessly around her instead of falling to the ground. With the gravity focused on her, Vienna was floating aimlessly in the air. Without being able to shift the gravity herself or push off of anything, she was as harmless as a bubble, even though she was a hundred times more ferocious.

Corlander seized the opportunity, summoning a large sword which launched like a javelin straight towards her. But then all three of them went careening towards the ground at an unimaginable speed. Realizing Vienna was in danger, Tyene forced the gravity of the entire area to be three times heavier than normal, grounding all three of them. It was a clumsy, panicked move that made the two girls hit the ground hard while Corlander reoriented himself enough to land on his feet.

Gravity attacks would only affect him for moments until he'd use his own to straighten himself out. Tyene winced at the pain in her body but kept conscious enough to force the gravity to keep Corlander grounded. Vienna, though she was covered in scars and bruises, continued after him. Realizing he wasn't flying away, he summoned another earth pillar to block her path. Vienna burst through like it was poster paper, rocks flying everywhere.

Another burst of wind pushed Vienna back, but Tyene used the gravity on the flying rocks, making Corlander the center point and pulling them all towards him at a blinding speed. They hit his leg and then his chest, and then covered him completely in earth debris. Tyene made it stronger and stronger until the force of the gravity ripped up chunks of earth, trees, and the mansion to pile on top of him. It seemed to stop him.

They had caught him early on the iteration, which meant he hadn't had the time to collect all the loot that made him impossible to beat yet. With Corlander trapped inside her gravitational pull, she started to believe that this was the one. She would kill him, after all these years. Hopes and dreams. That was all it was. The giant sphere of pieces attached to Corlander burst out in all directions. Tyene slowed time to give her space to dodge, but there were too many, and she couldn't find an opening.

A chunk of a tree trunk bowled over her, flattening her to the ground. Vienna was hit, unable to force her way through the extraordinary force emanating from Corlander now. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"We're finished now." Corlander lifted his hand, and a flame slowly gathered strength in the sky. It summoned fire and earth, merging into a giant blazing rock in the sky. The clouds cleared for it, and the rain around the mansion ceased entirely as Tyene stared above into a meteor twice the size of the mansion.

"ARE YOU INSANE!?" Tyene yelled.

"A THING THAT BIG WILL DESTROY THIS WHOLE MANSION AND KILL EVERYONE INSIDE!"

"So be it," Corlander said.

"No great deed comes without sacrifice." She pushed against it by forcing its gravity in a different direction, but Corlander's pull on it was too great and its size too large for her to stop it from hitting the ground right on her head. She had to destroy it. Slowing down time, she summoned a meteor equal to it in size, sending it to collide right above the mansion. The two balls of flame struck each other like giant mountains running at full speed.

They both burst into a thousand pieces, raining sharp debris on everything for a mile. It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was better than everything being flattened. Large chunks still fell on the mansion, and they could hear the panicked screams of the people inside.

"You're a certified piece of shit," Tyene mumbled. Though he wouldn't have heard it. She was using her time power to dodge as much of the falling debris as she could, as the impact made the earth quake. She could only use it in short bursts, so her focus remained on keeping herself alive. But for Corlander, all the pieces just bounced off his solidified body as he watched her use her power to her limit just to avoid being crushed.

When a chunk of meteor the size of a building flew towards him, he summoned a force field to protect himself. Then he watched Tyene do the same, dropping to her knees to catch her breath. Suddenly, a feral beast started wrenching at his force field, ripping and clawing and threatening to shatter the transparent shield.

"I didn't forget about you," Corlander said. He watched her attack, waiting for an opening. There was a broadsword in his hand.

"VIENNA STOP!!" Tyene screamed. But the drawback of the rage loot was that the user no longer had anything around them. Their only focus was to kill their target, and they wouldn't stop until they were done. Corlander picked up on that for himself, which was why he was so calm when she was threatening to break his protection. Tyene saw the trap but didn't have anything to stop him. Her copy ability was currently tuned to the forcefield, which was only applied to oneself. She had no attacking loot other than that.

So she forced time to slow and ran. And she would never forget the look that the man gave him. Locked in slow motion, to her, it lasted forever. It was pity. Of all things… it had to be pity. Vienna screamed as she drove her hand through the forcefield. At the instant, the field shattered. Corlander swung the sword, slashing across Vienna's chest. Her blood filled the air, and she immediately dropped to the ground, convulsing.

"NO!" Tyene ran to Vienna, grabbing her body and using her time dilation to speed away. By the power of reflex, Corlander watched her the entire time despite time being slowed. But he would choose to do nothing. Because of all things, he wanted her to understand… to understand the meaning of sacrifice. Tyene laid her on the ground, trying to stop the blood from Vienna's chest and mouth.

"Come on. Don't go. We were almost there. Please just stay with me." Tyene's eyes were welling up. Vienna, though, was still marred by the rage loot. Her eyes were vacant, and even with Tyene trying to hold her chest closed, she was still seething towards Corlander. Tyene didn't notice how close he was to them. Not until she felt his boot kicking her to her back.

"I can't begin to tell you how disappointing this is," Corlander said, standing over her, watching her desperately crawl towards Vienna.

"I remember the high hopes your mother had for you. Only for you to turn your back on the people that gave you everything you had." She summoned his sword, attempting to swing it up at him. Corlander caught it with his bare hand, unaffected by the weakness of the swing. And he smacked her with the flat end of the sword.

"Fuck you." She mouthed through the blood in her mouth.

"It's fine. As a favor to her, I'll make this quick." he paused.

"But before I do. I need you to tell me something." Tyene stared at Vienna's body, which had stopped moving.

"There's a fourth loot in you. One that my senses won't allow me to read. What does it do?"

"Go die."

"I suppose I'll find out then." He pointed the sword at her throat and thrust. But at the same time, he heard the sound of thunder. But the rain was gone, and the sword was thrust into an empty space on the ground.

"Ellie, can you heal her?" T'balt shouted.

"I'll try." The auburn-haired woman's hands glowed above the wound on Vienna's chest. Tyene was still coming to, realizing that she wasn't dead and the nightmare wasn't over yet. She was in a library, surrounded by people.

"What's happening?"

"We're back in Graceland," T'balt told her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let her go in alone." She frantically looked around, eventually finding Vienna, and crawled over to her on the floor.

"No. It's my fault," she said.

"It's always my fault." After a moment, Ellie's hands stopped glowing, but Vienna's body layed still.

"She's gone. We were too late." Though Ellie had said the words before, this time she was confused by them.

"She's dead?"

"Yeah," T'balt said.

"But I thought…" But his attention wasn't on her. It was Tyene who was staring at the body with tears in her eyes, eyes vacant. He knelt next to her.

"You remember me, don't you, Tyene?" She wiped her face and nodded.

"Sorry. I fucked up."

"It's alright," T'balt put a hand on her shoulder.

"Do you have a wallet or something on you?"

"Oh… Vienna… had it. I told her to put it in her coat pocket," she said despondently. T'balt teleported away, remembering that he had put her coat in the car after she left. Then he came back, looking through the wallet until he came across her ID.

"Tyene Demue-Corlander." Tyene then grabbed the gun from Vienna's holster and aimed it at her head.

"I'll see you on the other side." The gun went off, and so did all the lights. Then she woke up, back in her home, in her bed, at midnight on Zero Day.