Chapter 297. False Assumptions (Patreon)

I let Red navigate us. His expression is impassive as he runs scenarios and plunders the minds of sheltering civilians–and Bresnir’s agents, wherever they lurk below.

“Maria,” I ask. “What does your fatesight tell you?”

I see that if we kill Bresnir’s human goons, thousands will perish, she replies coldly. The chimeras are under no such protections, however.

“Based on what Maria sees and what I’ve picked up, there are one hundred chimeras in this city,” Red says. “They’re controlled by ten handlers.”

I think I can break the bindings on the handlers, Maria adds. I see where the array that binds them to the citizens is. Four of the handlers are hunkered down there.

“You’ve already told me in a scenario,” Red says, giving me–and by extension, Maria–a cheeky smile. “I may not mind wasting your time by asking in reality, but time is of the essence if we want to win.”

Fair enough. After a minute more of flying, we close in on our destination: a dueling stadium with a dirt center pit. The stadium appears to be cracked in three sections, as though attacked by an earth elementalist. Nobody has bothered to repair it.

We move fast enough that nobody engages us, likely realizing the futility of the effort. A wind elementalist could probably outpace us, but they wouldn’t be able to do us serious damage on their own. The most powerful weapon here–the panther chimeras–are land-bound.

“The handlers are beneath the stadium, under the earth,” Red explains. “They’ve turned it into a makeshift fortress. The stadium has been heavily reinforced to withstand the powerful blows of dueling peak practitioners.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Do you know who cracked it open like an egg?”

Red grins at me. “One of the people we’ve come to kill. They’re very powerful, but so are we.”

“In this sim, I’m just a peak practitioner like the rest,” I remind him. “I know you can run Regret scenarios to make sure we don’t slip up, but they’ll be running scenarios of their own. One mistake and we might have to start the round over.”

“While I appreciate the concern, it is unnecessary,” he replies. “You may lack the powers of an ascendant here, but I don’t.”

I give him a look. “Are you intending to take care of this yourself?” We know from the first round that Red’s Remorse affinity can’t affect the panther chimeras, who appear to be controlled by a rudimentary inorganic intelligence, or at least remotely operated.

Red laughs, then speaks out loud. “It’s my trial. You’re just the help.”

He taps the wyrm’s ribcage. I open it up, the bones shifting to the sides as he jumps down.

Now would be the perfect time for an earth elementalist to assassinate him, attacking before Red can react. I can’t sense the presence of anyone in the area, probably due to the shielding materials in the stadium’s floor and the thickness of the earth.

Sure enough, when red is halfway across the dirt field, the earth suddenly sucks down around him, threatening to engulf him like ultra-fast-acting quicksand.

Red, having anticipated it, dashes forward, barely visible, ascendant energy almost exploding around his feet to propel him forward.

The earth goes berserk around him–and the wyrm. I order my construct into the sky to avoid it, while Red simply dodges the earth with pinpoint accuracy while occasionally exploding it when he’s unable to evade.

Suddenly, the stadium groans… and a section of the earth collapses in a circle around Red. He falls into darkness, seemingly unworried about the threat of hostile practitioners below.

How deep under are the agents and panthers? I ask Maria. End affinity shouldn’t be impeded by physical obstructions. Remorse shouldn’t be either, but if the agents were smart, they’d have holed up further than a peak Remorse practitioner could reach. I doubt the stadium’s underground protections extend to blocking Remorse; there wouldn’t be a need for it.

It’s hard to say, she admits. I see their End arrows extending down, but there’s nothing to give me a sense of depth. There’s nothing to give me perspective.

Thuds, explosions, and a few shouts and roars echo out, barely audible over the sounds of far-off destruction and the drone of multiple klaxons.

Where are the End arrays? I ask. They’re what we’ve come here to break, and Maria is the only one who can disable them without setting them off.

Definitely under the stadium, she observes. I assume Red’ll incapacitate everyone, then welcome us in to disable the array.

Maria’s prediction is spot on. Three minutes later, Red returns from the hole in which he fell, then takes a dramatic bow. I roll my eyes as I bring the wyrm down. I dismount the construct and follow Red into the darkness, my vital perception allowing me to see in all directions with monochrome clarity.

“I’d suggest gliding over the floor,” he says as we reach the end of the shaft. I immediately notice the pools of blood cooling in the passageway.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes again. He’s clearly set on putting on a show. I can’t say I’m surprised; Red described his home world as a relatively peaceful place where powerful practitioners were less numerous. They mostly lived as politicians and celebrities, rather than despots and warriors. Showmanship would be important to both professions.

I eye Red with interest. He’s never spoken of his background before entering Eternity. With the ease with which he causes bloodshed, I must wonder if he’s demonstrating skills learned before or after his ascension.

The hall terminates in a chamber with low ceilings filled with corpses. At least twenty panther chimeras are strewn like refuse over the ground, some piled over on another. The four handlers are unconscious on the floor.

I kneel before them and follow Maria’s instructions, the End practitioner choreographing my every movement. Before, Holiday had questioned why I kept Maria in her lich form, bound to me as a fancy regalia. He had assumed, based on what we showed him, that I could not utilize Maria’s End affinity.

If–when–he sees this next part, he’ll realize the folly of his assumption.

I sketch a sigil in the air over the closest of the four handler bodies, familiarizing myself with the movement. With my Beginning affinity active, such practice wouldn’t be necessary.

Ready? Maria asks.

Yes. When I draw the sigil again, the silvery bracers on my hands activate. Maria’s power courses over my skin, awakening my End avatar, the alternate manifestation of what I call my ethereal body. End arrows form across my skin like tattoos, tracing the lines of my body.

At the end of my finger, the arrows coalesce into a golden point, a glowing ink invisible to anyone else.

Unlike Maria, I cannot see fate arrows, cannot see the oaths and arrays I intend to break, but that’s okay. Her shrewd eyes serve as my own, and we’ve had literal years to practice working together under Ancient Ash’s exacting eye.

The array is complex, and I curse my own inadequacy as my finger fails to follow Maria’s precise instructions. For this kind of work, at this level, precision is everything. I control my body with my practice, eliminating all unintended movements or twitches, but it’s still not enough.

Try it again, Maria encourages. You’ve always practiced this with Beginning to aid you; there’s no shame in making mistakes without it. Sensing that I’m not taking her words to heart, she adds, quit being such a perfectionist.

I exhale slowly through my nose, decompressing, then try it again, the bracers activating.

“This is wrong,” Red suddenly says. “We’re not supposed to use items in the sim.”

I turn to him, letting the bracers deactivate. “Holiday gave me express permission.”

“I want to win,” the bookish ascendant continues, “and not by cheating. You have good reason to need a certain item, but this?” He points to my bracers.

“Am I not allowed to receive any help from Maria, then? You’ve made excellent use of her fatesight thus far.”

“She’s technically your construct, and a product of your necromancy.”

I shake my head. “If I actually had Maria here with us, she’d be able to do far more than in this transformed state. You cry unfairness, when really, the power I’m exercising is a pale imitation of the original.”

You flatter me, Maria mentally croons.

Red considers this, then nods. “That’s a fair point. Proceed.”

This time, when I activate the bracers and manifest my End avatar, I draw the sigil without error. It settles onto the first handler like a diaphanous, circular insect wing, a membrane as thin as anything and streaked by gold veins.

I can’t see the binding that Maria intends to dismantle, but my manifested sigil begins to melt, disappearing into the handler’s chest. At once, I feel a pull on my person, a tug at the arrows within me, as though I am a fisherman with a whale caught on the line.

Maria, I think, overwhelmed by the pulling force, what should I do?

It’s not you who needs to worry, but me, she assures me. This is my power, after all. As the words leave her mind, the tension snaps, as though by some miracle, I’ve tugged the whale out of the water and into the air.

I squint as the pattern of my sigil surfaces on the handler, glowing on his chest where it originally disappeared, brighter than before, like a flame feeding on oxygen. Then the sigil cracks, and Maria’s power fades, my limited fatesight fading.

I feel a curious exhaustion, like I’ve flexed an underused muscle. When Maria and I practiced with Ash, we didn’t usually spend time breaking bindings, the practice less important when bindings could typically be nullified by suicide.

“Is it done?” Red asks her.

Yes. Next.

I frown, sensing her fatigue. You can barely string a sentence together; do you need a break?

One more, she insists, then I’ll rest before finishing the others.

—

Bresnir stands before us incorporeal, her eyes shifting back and forth, appraising. “Why are there two of you?” Her voice is soft; she’s trying to use as little air as possible. She takes only sips of it at random intervals and makes her lips and throat only just corporeal enough to produce sound. Her caution is what prevents us from immediately knocking her out. A Dark practitioner is annoyingly hard to injure when we lack the element of surprise. Red could still incapacitate her with the assistance of his ascendant energy, but Bresnir has contingencies in place for if her mind is compromised.

Red is utterly unconcerned by this. He completely ignores her question, saying, “Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you down. Are you prepared to leave?”

She blinks. “Is anyone?”

Red laughs coldly. “When it was my time to go, I certainly was.”

She swallows, her eyes once more shifting between us and the bodies strewn over the stadium. We’d brought them above ground to make a spectacle and give Bresnir the ultimatum that resulted in her now standing before us.

Red holds out his hand and beckons Bresnir to come forward. “If I wanted you dead, you would be,” he says. “Incorporeal or not, your fledgling ascendant energy wouldn’t be enough to protect you.”

She appears doubtful as she steps forward, her hand solidifying to grab Red’s. She meets his gaze. “Bold of you to take the hand of a Dark practitioner. I could kill you where you stand.”

He smiles. “You have worse manners than I anticipated from your memories.”

Her brow furrows as she tries to make sense of the statement. She would have felt the intrusion if Red invaded her mind in the real world, which could only mean…

“You’re a Regret practitioner,” she murmurs, her pupils contracting to pinpoints.

“If you were a threat, Bresnir, I’d have knocked you out. But you aren’t, not even a little bit.”

I grab Red’s other hand; within it, curled in his fist, is the return beacon. He presses on the activator and the world shifts. Suddenly we’re in the Hall of Ascension. It’s exactly as I remember it, a long, shadowed hall, with a beautiful ceiling mosaic of a star.

“And now you’re immortal,” Red says simply, showing no sign of interest in our surroundings. I bet he’s exploring it in scenarios.

Bresnir exhales in relief and lets her incorporeality fade. For all that Bresnir is a pragmatic, honorless, conniving criminal, she trusts Red with surprising ease. In all fairness, she has good cause to assume ascending equates instant immortality.

Too bad for her that the assumption is wrong.

Her body shudders as Red hijacks her mind. Her eyes follow his movements with horror as he struts forward. He tilts his head, giving the distinct impression of a housecat eyeing a trapped mouse.

“You know, Bresnir, you’re powerful enough that you’d stand a fair chance of defending yourself against me in combat, if you were brave enough to meet my descent,” he began. “My initial strike wouldn’t kill you since you can turn yourself incorporeal. It’s one of the best cheats of all the affinities.”

“Red, this isn’t real; don’t get carried away,” I say.

He glances at me and inclines his head. “Apologies.” He sighs and cuts his monologue short. His eyes flash with blue ascendant energy. Bresnir’s eyes roll back in her head, her mouth frothing.

“Round complete. Ascendant Red killed the half-step ascendant Kyla Bresnir by shattering her mind. Returning to the lobby now.”