The Effaced: Chapter Twenty-Six

The Arenamaster rounded the corner of the far end of the hall, about twenty paces behind Fake-Mist. She had a glowing red orb over one shoulder, and flows of red and blue light were streaming into, or maybe out of, the orb, connecting to each of the dead bodies in the hall. 

She hadn’t summoned Alyphize, but I knew the demon would be watching through the Arenamaster’s eyes. 

I was glad that I had split my focus, as I allowed my panic and dark thoughts to fill one side of my mind, while I focused on the current situation with my other side.

“For a woman who’s deeply connected to a Demonic Heir and Demonic Throne, you don’t look like much,” Hadiya said, peeking around the corner of the concrete she stood behind. “Kind of bland. And your suit is out of fashion.” 

The Arenamaster smiled and didn’t rise to the bait, but instead spoke calmly. 

“I made mistakes with you, Mist, I don’t deny that. I tried to control every aspect of your life. But I must say I’m disappointed in you. You grew so used to being yoked that the moment you were free, you sought out a new master to chain you?” 

“I think you have some serious misconceptions about Axel and my professional relationship,” Hadiya muttered. 

I ignored the jab, and instead looked into the eyes of the woman who’d raised me – not for the Arenamaster, but for Alyphize. 

“Alyphize,” I said. “Your uncle is worried about you. He wanted me to stop you, because he doesn’t think you can succeed, and that it might be worse if you do than if you don’t.” 

I was extrapolating a lot out of the Contractor’s comments, but I thought I’d gotten close to the truth, at least. 

The Arenamaster’s lips thinned, but she was too strong willed to allow Alyphize to force her to do more than that. 

“Alyphize,” I said urgently. “Break your contract. I know you can. If you can’t… Tell me. I can get your uncle. He’s the Contractor after all, he can brea–” 

“That Aspirant is a shortsighted fool!” the Arenamaster snapped. “Mist, kill them both!” 

Fake-Mist exploded into motion, crossing over the gap in the floor and swinging her sword at my head. I whipped my own blade up and knocked hers aside with raw strength, no spellwork at all, then drew power from my first arch-star, restoring myself. 

Now that I was in a fight, my instincts overwhelmed the panic I’d been feeling, and while I shed two more blows from the fake version of myself, causing chunks of the blade to go flying off, I built four new spells with the second half of my mind. 

First, I enhanced the sword, making the core more flexible, but also stronger, while improving the edge. A mistake that a lot of new metal mages made was making the edge of their blades as sharp as possible. That was a waste of power, since a blade too sharp was prone to cracking and chipping, and thus put more strain on the durability enhancing part of the spell. 

Of course, the blade was still made of slagged cheap steel, brass, and iron nails, so even with all the magic I had running through it, it wasn’t great, but it would stop breaking under the assault. Mostly. 

Second, I did essentially the same thing with my metal-woven shirt. This was at least quality metal, but it was a far cry from my full coat, so I’d need to be careful not to take more than a glancing cut.

Third, I cast a spell that would increase the mass of the blade with the more aura I channeled into it, and the commensurate weight increase should help my sub par blade at least keep up some. 

Fourth, I used my metal sensory spell. 

I lifted the blade and brought it down. The Fake-Mist’s own sword rose to parry my blade, and I poured power through my mass spell. 

The strike’s sudden increase in power caught Fake-Mist off guard, and her guard was knocked open. I brought the sword to her neck. 

“Surrender,” I said calmly. I really didn’t want to kill her. It was clear that she was under as much, or more, brainwashing as I’d been under. I’d had Odril to start planting the seeds of doubt, but it didn’t seem like this version of Mist did.

The Arenamaster clicked her tongue in disappointment. 

“I’d hoped that you’d be better than that, Mist.” 

I didn’t know which of us she was talking to – was she chastising my unwillingness to kill the girl before me, or her failing to anticipate such a rapid shift in my blade’s mass, and thus, weight? 

“No!” False-Mist said, driving her blade up at me. I stepped back, flowing down the hallway, but I had to take the blade away from her neck. She exploded into motion, swinging her weapon at me in short, fast cuts. 

I continued moving back, spinning on one leg as I twisted down the corner at the end of the hallway and retreated down, licking out with my sword when I saw an opening, but she was so blindingly fast.Each cut seemed to move faster than the last, and as she pressed me back, I rapidly started building a fifth, then a sixth spell. 

The fifth spell helped me move my sword quicker, and I bridged the gap for a moment, but she was already beginning to move faster still. I poured more power in, but it was becoming a power game. 

My brain spun. The Arenamaster had wanted me to have a Mass bond in the hopes I’d be able to move through any sort of solid matter, but that had failed. Still, my ability to shoot through wards was well known.

Part of that had been Odril, but the other part… 

Had she given this version of me an acceleration rune?

I wouldn’t put it past her. The tricks you could potentially pull off with that were different, but still impressive.

I continued work on my sixth spell as I poured power through my others. I dropped the mass increasing spell as I shifted completely to defense, retreating down the halls, taking turns through the building and continuing to work my way backwards.

Fake-Mist continued to press me back with her blade, subject to a static acceleration, continued to increase its speed, and I felt a gash rip open on my left leg. It was long and fairly deep, but clean. I’d have to deal with it later though. 

I crammed more effort into my sixth spell, desperately working to complete it as I pressed my defense, retreated down the halls, and drew more power from my first arch-star. 

I hated to say it, but the fight going in Fake-Mist’s favor wasn’t just from the fact that she was faster and using a better weapon than me. 

No, she was also better than me, at least in sword magic and swordsmanship.

I was out of practice, and she was very much not.

More than that, her own metal and acceleration magic was wielded well in conjunction with impressive skills. Without an archmage’s sight arch-star, I couldn’t actually determine how well, but it didn’t seem like she was on the verge of running out of aura, even as our battle drew ambient aura dry around us and we continued to move back. 

Had she already gained her third arch-star, and chosen the same kind as I had? It seemed plausible, even more so if she really did also have an auric infusion familiar. The odds of getting exactly the same familiar power were low, but not impossible.

She used some sort of spell on the metal of the boots then and lunged through the air at me.

I saw my opening and cut power to my reinforcement spell, bringing my sword up to knock her blow aside. 

The blade shattered under Fake-Mist’s attack, but it knocked the blade off course enough to drive into my arm, rather than my throat. Blood sprayed as she pulled her blade from the wound, then it flickered up towards my neck again.

I took a breath as I finished my spell and began moving the metal. I was taking a risk here, but Mist had no indication that I was wearing a ward. After all, she’d just dealt me a non-lethal blow.

But Zone was good. Her lifesaving ward would only activate if my life was actually in danger.

When Fake-Mist’s blade came for my throat, I allowed the blow to land, where Zone’s ward bloomed to life, stopping the blow dead in its tracks.

“Cheat!” she shouted, pulling her blade back and readying her magic for a final, killing strike.

She never got the chance.

The concrete around us was smashed to bits as a pair of industrial beams shattered through the walls and wrapped around Fake-Mist’s form like a snake.

I spun out a metal enforcement spell then, and infused my third arch-star into it, even as she tried to fight me for control over the metal. 

Suddenly forced to double the expenditure of aura to just stay relevant in the fight, she wiggled and squirmed as best she could while being wrapped in enough metal to hold down a small elephant. 

“I beat you!” she shouted. “I had you.” 

“If an earth mage kills you for touching the ground, it’s your fault for not assuming they’d use the terrain, not their fault for using it,” I said, the words quiet and half born out of instincts that Aniseed had drilled into me, rather than any actual intention. 

Fake-Mist spat in my general direction, or at least tried to, but she was still wearing a mask. 

I twisted my aura into a simple spell and floated her up into the air, and then picked up her sword. It was much better than even the one I’d given to the front desk, with solid anti-tampering enchantments, as well as simpler, weaker enchantments for durability, flexibility, and sharpness. 

I gave it a nod of approval and began to stride back towards where I’d come from, even as the building crumbled behind me.

“Listen, you lost, but you put up a good fight,” I told Fake-Mist. “What’s your name?” 

“Mist,” she insisted. 

“Pick another,” I told her. “Hazel. Copper. Bernice. Gertrude.” 

“Gertrude?” she asked, sounding befuddled and a little insulted.

“It’s a fine name,” I said. 

“For an old woman!”

I felt a thin smile touch my lips even as I cast spells to reinforce the hallway as we walked. 

She was bantering with me, despite being caught. 

That was how Odril had started unwinding some of the brainwashing around me. Banter and lighthearted remarks that wormed their way into my head and stuck around far longer than I’d hope. 

“You mean you’re not sixty? I thought you were, given how shriveled up like an old woman you are.” 

“I’m eighteen!” she snapped. “I should have a cool name. I mean. Mist is a good name. It’s fine, and I don’t need a new one.” 

“You could do what most people who find they don’t fit into the gender binary do, and name yourself after an object,” I mused. “When I was in college, I had a… rival… who named themself Lake. Their partner was named Sal, short for Salad.” 

“I’m perfectly fine being a woman,” she said. “I gave it a lot of thought for a while, but no, I’m happy.”

“Well that’s good. The Arenamaster might make you murder people without giving you a chance to say no, but at least she’s willing to accept people for whatever they happen to be.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you–” 

“Nah, I was born a man, and am happy enough as one.” 

Truthfully, though it was a bit ham-fisted, I’d just wanted to point out that she was being made to kill without an option to say no. 

Because I suspected that she never had said no to killing. 

It was very easy to not say no, when you’re raised in a culture where saying no is allowed but merits disfavor, and constantly going along with it. It starts with small things, like refusing to clean a room or refusing to stay an extra hour to help out, and then it expands. With enough manipulation, it’s easy to get to a point that you never even think of no as an option in the first place.

“What were you doing when you shot me?” I asked, shifting the topic. 

“Oh, we needed to blow up stuff in that g… No, that’s not allowed. You can’t press me for information.” 

“Okay,” I said. Maybe I should have pressed her, but I wouldn’t. 

“What’s your demon’s name?” I asked instead. “Mine was named Odril before she was forcibly sealed.” 

“Veriotix,” she said. “Is that why you were so… clunky?” 

“Part of it,” I admitted as we stepped around the corner and back in view of the Arenamaster and Hadiya. 

The pair were in an all out duel. Hadiya drew out tiny pellets from her purse and threw them, and they transformed into flashing spell attacks, only to be countered with demonic magic from Alyphize, or from a spell flashing out of one of the Arenamaster’s necklaces. When I appeared, the Arenamaster snarled, and turned to Alyphize. 

“Get us out of here!” 

Alyphize nodded, and there was a red flash of light. When it faded, the Arenamaster was gone, as was the Fake-Mist. Hadiya cursed, and I nodded. 

“We need to go too,” I said, dropping the massive brass beams I’d been levitating and instead floating the anti-diviantion device back over to us. 

“I know,” Hadiya said, pulling a vial from her bag and chugging it. A moment later, she started floating. I used a combination of mass reduction spells and metal magic to lift myself up as well, then we shot out of the hole in the ceiling and over the skies.