259 - Unsure

“What the hell is that thing?” Xena squeaked as she scrambled to her feet, her leg getting caught on the blanket.

“Pvilycht. He’s my cousin.”

“Your what?”

“I’ll explain later.” Lexie focused on Pvilycht. “What do you mean you’re in danger?”

“A creature is approaching me. I am not certain I can defeat it independently.”

What creature couldn’t Pvilycht defeat? He could just take it apart when it reached him.

“I can’t sense its power,” Pvilycht said. 

“Why not?”

“I do not know. An Old One is coming too."

“Shit.” If it was anything like the Old One that created clones of Lexie, then Pvilycht was in trouble. “Get out of there.”

“I’m trying. I do not think I can escape it.”

“Not even if I pull you here?” 

“I don’t think you can.”

It was true. Lexie tried. The summoning card could only pull so much of Pvilycht's essence to Earth, but never in its entirety, not even with Lexie here. Her only option was to teleport to him and get him out of there.

“He’s already here,” Pvilycht said ominously before he vanished. 

“Pvilycht!” Lexie cried out as her door slammed open, revealing Uncle Max with his gun drawn. 

“What’s going on?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Pvicycht is in trouble,” Lexie was already activating the portal to her dungeon. “I have to go.”

“Wait, Lexie–”

As Lexie rushed through, someone grabbed her hand, getting sucked in as well. 

As she appeared underneath the red, the sunless sky, she looked behind her to realize it was Xena.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lexie yelled.

“I wasn’t going to let you go by yourself,” Xena yelled back.

“You should have! What are you even going to do in here?”

"I’m a Lightlark,” she said. “I can help.”

Lexie ran her hand over her face. “This isn’t child’s play, Xena. Is it not a simulation? This is real life. You could get seriously hurt or killed.”

“I know that.” She pursed her lips. “Even though you told me it wasn’t dangerous when you brought Dewie here.”

“That was different. This time, there’s an actual Old One attacking us.”

“What’s an Old One”

“See? I don’t even have time to explain it to you.” Lexie blew out her breath. “Just stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere, no matter what you see or what you hear. You’ll be safe as long as you don’t move. 

Xena swallowed and nodded. “Be careful.”

“I will,” Lexie said, and then she teleported to where Pvilycht was. And instantly regretted it. 

Everything felt…wrong. From the air she was breathing in, to the way the atmosphere looked. It was like there was a fine layer of static in it, and she felt a void somewhere, but it was nowhere to be seen. 

Meanwhile, Pvilycht was engaged in a battle with a beast with multiple limbs. It was a bug creature, the shape of a lice, with multiple hairy, spiky legs that it kept thrusting at Pvilcyt. Pichycht was taking them apart systematically, but then more kept appearing, and every one that he blasted grew into two more legs. 

Lexie instantly held out her hand to demolish the creature's body, but something felt weird. Her magic was sluggish to move, for some reason. What the heck was going on?

Before she could argue, she saw something else approaching. A looming darkness in the distance that spurned a bunch of Lexies that were charging at her. 

“Great,” she muttered. It was the Old One she'd faced before, back for round two.

She slid out of the way as the first Lexie descended on her. She tried to connect her soul card with the Old One, but he kept his distance. He hadn’t engulfed her like before, learning from his prior mistakes. Instead, he stayed away and had sent the clones at her.

The good news was that they were clones at Lexie’s previous power level, not her current one, and they didn’t have her current skills.

So she used her newer cards to fight back.

Her lungs burned as she spawned several creature cards to cover her and take out the clones.

But again, something weird happened.

Some of the creatures came out...funny.

They were glitchy, some not as solid as they should be, some missing an arm or a leg. Still, their abilities worked fine. Lightning crackled in the atmosphere, chasing the Old One, but it retreated even further.

As Lexie kept the clones occupied, she targeted the bug with more lightning, but missed every single time. It was strange. Her aim was off.

What the heck was happening to her? Why did she suck all of a sudden?

In the chaos, she realized that one of Pvilycht's arms had been stabbed off, hanging on by a shred of skin. Black blood pooled on the ground, but it didn't seem to slow him down. He was twisting his other arm in the air, making the body of the bug contort in odd shapes.

But his power kept failing. His ability would only work for a short time, and then it would suddenly glitch without warning, setting the bug free to attack once again.

Something strange was going on here.

Okay. Relax Lexie. Think.

She needed to figure out what it was before things got worse.

She activated her soul card and reached out to the air. She couldn’t feel much. 

It was strange. She could sense the creatures around her, even sense her bond to Pvilycht, but sometimes they felt too far away, even if she could see them. Was something altering her sense of distance? Or was it more of an alteration of reality?

Even her sense of herself was getting foggy. Was she really here? Was she real?

She shook her head to clear it.

There was definitely something in the air that was making her loopy. She needed to anchor herself in something she was sure was real.

She used her soul card to tap into the dungeon itself, connecting with it and using its senses to get the lay of the land.

That was when she truly understood what was going on. The dungeon was upset that it had invaders again. They’d come in from an attached dungeon whose door had not been closed.

And it wasn’t just the Old One and the giant louse in attendance.

It was also another Old One she couldn't see, and that was the thing causing her confusion.

Leie focused on that and tried to understand it, but it didn't seem to have any given form. The second she connected it changed, transformed, felt so utterly different that it didn't felt nothing like its first self.

Then, its soul would retreat, severing the connection. She couldn't do more than touch it because its soul was always running. Always hiding.

It didn't want to be understood. It didn’t want to be perceived.

It was ashamed.

Shame. That was the last thing Lexie got before her mind started twisting around again.

Logically, she understood that the Old One wasn't just changing its own form. It was changing the form of everything around it. It was a folding reality, making it uncertain, unsolid.

Lexie felt it more potently now, a pressure behind her eyes, a thought she constantly struggled to finish. Everything was delayed, pain arrived late, her body moved more slowly, her power was not as certain.

She lived in a state of constant hesitation.

It felt like a fever dream where everything was a little too wrong. The ground folded underneath her. A rock burst out of the earth's surface, then seemed to forget where up was and simply fell away. 

It was fracturing even the dungeons' sense of itself and rendering Pvilycht’s powers useless.

How could you take something apart that didn't exist as itself? How could you replicate the powers that you could not understand, not perceive, or even think about clearly?

As Lexie stood there, everything swirling around her, she began to lose her sense of self, too.

Memories dropped out of her mind. She stood there numbly and wondered what exactly she was supposed to be doing here and why she wasn’t doing it. She felt ashamed that she wasn't. It was more than just that. It was digging deep into her psyche, taking out things that she’d thought were true and ripping them up.

That she was powerful. That she was brave. That she was Lexie. 

It reminded her of the cowardly thoughts she’d had. Her moments of weakness and crying for help. 

“Master,” Pilycht's voice whispered in her mind even as she stared at the abyss. “You have to wake up. Resist Khaer-Null.”

Khaer-Null. That was its name. 

Instead of holding onto herself, she held onto her sense of Pvilycht. It seemed easier to anchor herself to something outside of herself, even as her identity was being stripped away. 

Pvilycht was powerful. He was her disciple. He was an Eldritch.

But before he was an Eldritch, he’d been a wandering dwarf. And a sprite. And a dragon. And an Elf. And a gnome. And a river spirit. So many things had been welded together to make him himself.

These were not things Pvilcyht had known about himself. These were the only things that Lexie had discovered after Pvilcyht's Eldritch self had been stripped away.

But it wasn't completely gone, because Lexie still felt his Eldritch hunger. His apathy. His drive to create.

Maybe this was a manifestation of what he'd been struggling with this whole time. After Lexie had used her light on him, she'd made him less Eldritch and more human, like her. But that shift in his self must have been painful, must have felt as deeply uncomfortable as she felt right now.

Nevertheless, she felt his excitement to be her disciple, his happiness to be useful.

She felt peculiar emotions, deep, deep inside that she had no words for, but she recognized them anyway.

It was a shame she’d never dug this deep before, not being able to see him until her own sense of self was being stripped away. She didn't know who she was, but she knew who Pvilycht was now.

I don’t know who I am, Pvilchyt said. I am nobody. Just parts. Just flesh and bone. Just nothing.

You are somebody. You are more than the sum of your parts. Lexie countered. Hold onto me, I will show you who you are.

She forced herself to remember things about him, their working together, their conversations. She remembered who Pvilcyht was and what he meant to her, and flooded him with it.

As she did, she felt his grip on her getting stronger. She wondered if he was also getting a sense of her, anchoring himself to her as she was to him. Would he understand her as deeply as she understood him in this moment?

Even if so, it wasn't enough. They needed to escape this torment together before they got torn apart by the clones and the bug.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eyes, a portal appeared, and something happened. 

A light shone from nowhere, causing the creatures to screech and rush away from Lexie.

The confusion fell from her mind, and she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, realizing for the first time that she'd been suffocating.

Pvilycht had also been right in front of her, gasping for breath too, and still missing an arm, but alive nonetheless.

It took her a while to realize that Xena was standing there, holding both hands out, her skin glowing. 

Xena. 

She rushed and held Lexie's hand. "Are you okay?"

Lexie hissed. Even as his skin singed and her insides roiled, she was flooded with a strong sense of belief and self. She knew she was now. Lexie Sparrowfoot. She was strong. She was somebody.

"Okay, let go," Lexie bit out, and Xena dropped her arm, reducing her light. Lexie glanced around. All the creatures had backed off, either thanks to Xena or because they believed that now that Lexie had broken the Old One's hold, they were no match for her.

They were right.

She still used her soul card, scanning for the other Old One she couldn't connect with. It was close by enough that she could touch its soul, but it tore away quickly and retreated, disappearing entirely.

But she still got a sense of its power, the way it twisted things around and disabled things. It wasn't like Pvilycht's power that took things apart. It was more like it played around with your sense of existence, and made what should be, no longer.

They couldn't figure out exactly how it was doing it, because it was a being without a system, its existence defined by a lack. It was not itself. It was Null.

“Are you okay?” Xena asked. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Her soul felt bloated, and her pathways hurt, but he shook her head.

She was more concerned about Pvilycht. His arm was healing, but he was sitting there staring blankly. "Pvilycht?”

He turned to her. "Who is Pvilycht?”

“What?”

He shook his head. “I do not know who that is.”

Lexie and Xena shared a puzzled look.

"I guess it had some lasting effects," Lexie probed him with their bond, then told Xena, “Can you give him some of your belief powers?”

Xena made a look of distaste, but she tried.

Nonetheless, Pvilycht skittered away and ran screeching. 

“Pvilcht! Pvilcyht!’ Lexie yelled out, but he wasn’t answering. Ah. She didn’t have time for this. 

She trapped him in a force field and brought him back, holding him down while Xena worked.

He screamed the entire time, but then he got his mind back.

"Lord Lexie," he greeted. "You saved me."

"I think Xena saved both of us," she gestured to her friend.

"Of course." Pvilycht got to his feet and executed a formal bow. Xena responded with an awkward wave, still looking unsure about him. "Hey."

“How did you get here?” Lexie asked.

"I’m not sure. A portal opened, and I saw you choking, and I walked through.”

"For real?"

"I believe that was my doing," Pvilycht said. "When I anchored myself to you, I used your bond to communicate with the dungeon, asking for help."

"You can communicate with a dungeon?" Xena asked.

"Yeah," Lexie answered. "But how did the dungeon know Xena could help me?"

"I am not sure. Perhaps the dungeon also used your power to tell," Pvilycht shrugged. "The dungeon is much different now. Every time I come, it feels different. Like it is advancing. I like to observe it."

"Huh." Lexie frowned. So the dungeon was sentient but also growing? What did that mean?

Lexie sighed. "More to think about." Then she turned back to Xena. "You really just entered a strange portal because you thought I was in trouble? It could have been a trap."

She gave Lexie a cheeky smile. "Yeah, but I figured you would save me if it was."

Lexie didn't know whether to celebrate Xena's trust in her abilities or to get mad at Xena for risking her life.

She shook her head, addressing Pvilycht once more. "You're going to be in danger for a while. Both of us are actually, because I can't take the Lordship test yet."

"I understand," he said.

"Maybe I can negotiate a deal with Neqal," Lexie asked. "Although I'm not sure it was Neqal who sent those things after us. I'm also going to figure out a way to bring you to Earth. You'll be safe there."

Xena choked. "Earth?"

"Yeah. It's okay. He's harmless. For now, dungeon..." Lexie connected to it. "Hide Pvilycht. Keep him safe."

To her surprise, the dungeon responded with an affirmative. It really had mellowed out a lot, and it sounded...intelligent, almost.

Crazy.

After figuring out the details, Lexie and Xena finally returned home.

"By the way, your light power," Lexie said before they entered the portal. "Amazing. Sickening, but amazing."

***

“You just wait till I tell your father about this," Max scolded as he paced back and forth. He'd been yelling at them for what felt like an hour already, ever since they appeared in the living room. "And you, Xena? I thought you were smarter than that. I'm telling Emma what you did, right after I have the conversation with Aiden."

“Or you could not tell him,” Lexie said. 

“Give me one good reason why not?”

“Because then I’ll tell him you were drinking beer all night and not keeping a close enough eye on us.”

Max's eyes widened at her audacity. "Are you actually trying to blackmail me right now, little girl?"

"Yes," Lexie blinked, "Is it working?"

Uncle Max shook his head, but she wasn't sure if it was to answer her question or in sheer incredulity.

The conversation was interrupted when the door opened. Tate walked in, looking between them with interest.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"You!" Max barked at him, transferring his anger. "Where have you been?"

"At the library," Tate answered.

"Again? Just how many books do you read? You pack too many facts in that head of yours, and it's bound to explode. Also, it's an hour after curfew."

"We don't have a curfew," he said.

"You do now. I don't know what kind of ship Aiden was running, but I run a tight ship, and you kids aren't going to give me a heart attack before my time, alright?" 

After Max was done yelling at them, they went back up to their room. There, Lexie finally told Xena that she was an Old One and what it'd been doing to her.

"Wow," Xena said, staring at the roof. "That's scary."

"Yeah, but you saved me, so it worked out."

"I saw you fight clones of yourself before. In the orb."

"I've tangled with him before." It occurred to her. "I beat him then. And I beat him now."

Xena smiled, but it was another weak one.

"I'm surprised you didn't see Pvilycht in the orb," Lexie said. "You seemed surprised to see him."

"I haven't watched the whole thing yet," she admitted. "I was supposed to, but I just couldn't get past some parts."

"Oh. I get it." Lexie wondered if Xena had watched the parts at SJP. If she had, she'd probably have a lot more questions for her. Which reminded her...did the Fae know about it? Did they know about the soul program? Obviously right?

Lexie thought Xena would have trouble sleeping, but she dozed off for most of the night. Lexie stayed away, though, thinking about how to bring Pvilycht to Earth.

Her dad called early the next morning, while Xena was still asleep. Lexie went down to the living room to answer the call, so as not to wake her friend up.  

"Hey, honeybee," Aiden greeted.

"Dad!" She was so thrilled to hear his voice. "Are you there yet?"

"No, we're still on the ship. How many human days has it been?"

"Only a couple."

"Huh. Feels like a few hours up here. Anyway, what have you been up to? Anything exciting happen?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, hoping Max would keep the news to himself. "Actually, I had a talk with our old friend."

"Our old friend?"

"Yeah. Your childhood friend." She didn't want to say Naem's name in case anyone was listening.

Luckily, her father got it. His voice got darker. "What did he want?"

"Nothing. I just talked to him about my problems, and he told me I'd gotten taller."

"You have?"

"You really don't see it? Max doesn't see it either. And frankly, neither did I. But I don't get it. He wouldn't lie. Unless..." Lexie trailed off.

“Did you get taller?”

“I don’t know. Did I?”

“I think so.”

She reframed that entire conversation in her mind, zeroing in on the way that the height comment came out of the blue. Maybe he'd said it because he knew it was the type of thing she would fixate on, which made it the perfect thing to use as a code.

But code for what?

"Lexie," Aiden said. "Are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Lexie said distractedly, thinking of the words again.

"Think through all trades, and consider angles you might not have before, especially as you grow. Look at things more holistically from your current vantage point. Looking directly at a problem and looking down at it gives you two entirely different perspectives.”

She bit her lip, and then it hit her like a bolt of lightning.

Holy shit, Lexie realized. I think I know what he means.

AN: Changed a part of the last chapter to match this chapter. Marked with *