The Mirror Monster wasn’t amused. Somehow, the world’s biggest sneer could be felt in the darkness. “Maintaining a sense of humor in this is exceptionally absurd, little blue bundle of rubbish.”

  Azure painted a smirk on her face. “I’m not arguing. It’s nice how you’ve given me a term of endearment. If you win, will you keep it for me?”

  “There is no ‘if.’ And no, you idiot. I haven’t decided if I’ll preserve you in some fashion for torment. It’s not too late to broker for treatment. Your temptation to me remains — that of you succumbing willingly. I’ll mercifully annihilate you if you prefer. Or possibly more. If you beg convincingly.”

  “Gee, what a deal. I’ll pass, though. I didn’t come down all this way for a pat on the head, oh Queen of Dominance. Kindly shove your offers up your ass and spin them.”

  The Mirror Monster’s fury rose up again, charging the very air. “Have it your way, then. The hard way, though hardly the long way. I suppose I should’ve expected nothing less from a crystalline doll!”

  The attack that came was sudden and unavoidable — a psychic bull rush and claws tearing in to shred her mind directly. Resistance was not just raw willpower to hold on. It was holding onto herself as something tried to slip between the gaps and replace her, to tear and force its way into her conscious mind, where there was only room for one.

  Azure barely kept her out, and rather than pain, it was simply the purest of terror that she felt, that of being unmade, or thrown off a cliff to break on rocks. Instead, she tumbled down and managed to find foundational anchors to hold onto. Purpose, responsibility, friends, and above all: Samantha.

  She screamed in that moment of near unmaking and fell to her knees, her mind clouded over in weakness and shock. Whatever she was expecting, it hadn’t been that.

  There was little time to recover. The attack to rip her apart came again, quick and ferocious as before, unseen claws cutting at her psyche. Another scream as she resisted and fell on her face — her cheek could feel a distant heartbeat through cold, thick flesh coated in a fine layer of dust.

  A third forceful attack came, perhaps a bit blunted in severity. Azure found her mind was completely fuzzed over. Only words and concepts persisted within her, keeping her from ripping free and tossed adrift into oblivion. Geirkos. Heaven. Chestnut. Daughters. Blueberry. Estara. Mirrors. Azure. Samantha.

  More attacks, fading in strength just as she faded. Memories cemented her in place, bubbled up from The Words.

  The sharp yet soft words of the one she called Boba, the only one that kept her sane in captivity and brokenheartedness. “You’ll survive, silly girl. Stop crying. Your tomorrow is like my today — decent enough.”

  A flash in a mirror, distracting the guard so she could escape the compound. The first touch of the divine in her heart, like a sprout before the coming bloom.

  Spinning her exasperated, grown daughter on her back in another life — yet she cherished it all the same in this one, even as it scared her. “Mom! MOM! St-stop it! Mooooom!”

  Exultantly hugging and clinging to the one she desperately wanted on the back of a dragon.

  “You’re flying, Blueberry! It’s okay! I have you!”

  More whips of the psychic lash came, trying to tear her away. Wear her down to nothing. But she held on… Remembering the first of their hands interlacing. Remembering their first, glorious kiss in the Hall and the perfection of their first night of lovemaking. Remembering the times she was needed to console and soften the hard edges of someone else fractured and made fragile by the terrible cruelties of life.

  “It’s alright, Chestnut.”

  For that most of all, she couldn’t break. For that, she was bent and endured. The core of who she was, she realized…

  The bonds that hold, that pull together. The urge and the draw of connection. To become relational, to relate. Lust to exist and strive; Love to preserve. To cherish.

  In that moment of horror, at a time when there was every excuse for one little slip, one last release, Azure found an unbreakable center within herself, and the core of her held firm.

  Into an exhausted pause after a furious struggle, Azure finally came back more solidly to consciousness, fallen face-first on the fleshy, pulsating floor. A low, continuous growl issued from the Mirror Monster, who could be felt looming over her. That growl also showed signs of panting with effort.

  “So the dainty creampuff has a backbone!” the demon of her called, clearly quite annoyed by the development. “You want to be softened up, do you? You want to know the pain my hell can bestow? Fine. I’ll oblige. I know just what I want to do first.”

  Rich visual reality blossomed on a dime, a blinding shock after the sensory deprivation before. Slick organic contours surrounded her all around, glowing green and flexing like alien muscles, and from out of it grew a kind of tongue. The tip of it was no simple ending, but rather a monstrous mouth of a thousand sharp teeth, ringed by many eyes all identical, all the familiar predator that was the Mirror Monster. Hundreds of long, barbed tentacles extended from around it, and many were already wrapping around Azure’s limbs while she still writhed on the ground.

  Helplessly, unable to even scream, Azure watched as she was crammed into the mouth of many rows of sharp teeth and foul saliva — she felt those teeth clamping down on her body, crushing at first, breaking bones, and then cutting and piercing. A blade-like tooth through her guts. A hand severed. Blood gushed; her flesh mixed with burning saliva.

  Every nerve was overwhelmed in that nightmare scenario, her body thrust entirely into physical shock.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Azure had a unique relationship with pain, though. Within her was all of this and more already conceived. Birthed. Familiarity came with it, and almost an appreciation — for the attempt. She understood it; expected as much from herself. Meanwhile, that center, her core, never budged whatsoever.

  A cold, hard thought formed, even in relative paralysis. No System messages.

  She was bitten and chewed, then spit out with a disgusted sound, turned into a broken, smoking spill of twisted remains on the floor of the hellscape. Just barely, one of Azure’s eyes still functioned, though pretty much nothing else did.

  “You’re awful, actually,” the monster taunted, voice now twisted and distorted as it came from the maw. “Perhaps I’ll just rip you apart. All I need is the head!” The tentacles whipped out toward her once more.

  Azure, for all the spectacle before her, closed her eye and ignored it. Tuned it out. She went inward, deeper, and forced the so very real hallucination in her head out.

  My spaces. It’s all mine, all under my control. I am the mistress here!

  Back in the darkness. Standing. Her body was whole, not a scratch felt on it. She did take a shuddering breath, as her nerves from end to end flared, in phantom memory of the horrifying ordeal.

  The only thing ‘seen’ in that dark bottom were the eyes of the demon, now appearing to seeth in fury. “Do you really think you want this here?!” With a snarl of offense, the eyes flashed balefully as the Mirror Monster charged and leapt at her.

  Azure failed to dodge her and was slammed and knocked into the fleshy floor. A bite soon followed, and somehow Azure flinched/jerked/pivoted her head out of the way, only taking a burning gash on the neck. An existing enchantment flared, reducing the wound severity and keeping the depth of damage lesser.

  Shit. We’re For Real, now.

  “Ooh, the taste is divine — give me another bite!” the demon taunted, still grappling to try and pin her down. A large, strong body bore down, steel-hard scales for skin.

  Azure managed to reach a hand into a dimensional pocket and pulled out something just for such a close encounter. Cupped in her hand was a kind of malleable glowing putty that lightly pushed away from her skin. She smeared it on her foe’s side by the rib cage, completely transferring all material, then found voice enough to call the command word, “Escria Oen Shara!”

  The glowing substance flared, suffused, and surrounded the demon in a white outline, like a skin-tight forcefield. All her grip on Azure slipped, and Azure pushed away and out from under her. An attempted last bite with a mouth like a shark's row on her leg simply bounced off.

  Azure scurried up to her feet, feeling the wetness at her neck from the oozing blood. The Mirror Monster also rose, though wobbly from the disorienting effect of the glowing forcefield.

  The entity was nightmarish enough despite the reduction from being a giant mouth. Her head and jaw were oversized, and her hair was a massive, wild mane. Her arms and legs were disturbingly elongated, ending in monstrous claws. She had a thick, reptilian tail and was slightly hunched.

  The demon glanced at itself and the forcefield. “Always running from a fight, aren’t you? You should’ve never come here.”

  Azure bared her teeth. “I faced you, I touched you, I know how to end you. What I cling to is not a weakness. They aren’t a weakness, but the very best of me. Adaptation, evolution, and progress, as fashioned by love. You? You’re obsolete.” She pointed and spoke another command word. “Escria Tallein!”

  Scouring magic exploded inward like white fire as the forcefield collapsed. The Mirror Monster screamed in pain from the point-blank alchemical detonation and fell backward. The realm around quaked as if in trepidation for the wounding of its mistress.

  Azure rushed over to the smoking form, still doused in slowly fading, glowing fumes — enough to see by. Pulling out a dagger, Azure spoke a command word and it turned into a spear.

  Standing over her writhing, defeated foe, spear ready to finish things in the beast’s throat, Azure declared, “More than you deserve, but I’m putting my demon to rest!”

  A head just lifted, weakly. “Kill me and you’ll never know the truth, Naugite doll.”

  Despite her hatred, her urge to end it, and the need to take advantage of weakness… Azure hesitated.

  It was enough for the Mirror Monster to exploit. An unseen tail wrapped around an ankle and jerked — Azure quickly drove her spear in answer even as she fell, scoring a piercing wound into a leg, eliciting another cry.

  She was thrown free and spinning, and as soon as she hit the fleshy contour of the floor, it seemed to flex and tilt itself, making her tumble down into a long, sharp ravine, slamming down into the bottom.

  As soon as she could, with a pained groan, Azure scrambled up and whirled around in disorientation, seeking any sign of her foe. Meanwhile, internally, she kicked herself.

  Fucking stupid idiot! Should’ve killed her right then. I had the chance. I blew it!

  Whirling around, panting, hearing phantom sounds, Azure panted and panicked. She tried a light spell. Nothing, of course. She wracked her brain even as she wheeled around with her spear. What would work?! What was like the alchemical glow?!

  She spun around from a sudden feel in the air and right there in her face were the Mirror Monster’s eyes, and her claws reaching out in another charge, ever so faintly outlined with remainders of the fading glow of alchemical dust. With a yelp, Azure fell backward to the ground and thrust her spear forward to gore her in reception of the charge…

  Time flashed and slowed — stopped, warped, and shifted. The image of the Mirror Monster became clear, with a spear running through it. But not like wood and steel through flesh… through it like a ghost.

  The image contorted, distorted, and collapsed into a completely different, luminous form. A woman in a strange split mask, wearing a strange hat, clad in strange robes. She gleamed resplendent silver, her presence that of one greater than a queen. Grace radiated from her.

  Time returned. Azure fell fully onto her back, caught in shock.

  A spear still stuck through her — ignoring it — the queen held a hand down to Azure as if to help her up. “Well done, Azure. You’ve more than passed this test — you’ve greatly exceeded my expectations.”

  I am sick today...

  Next Chapter...

  *sick noises*

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