Day in the story: 11th December (Thursday)

We were inside something enormous, something that shouldn't have been able to fit in the building we had just entered.

The cave stretched wider and taller than seemed possible. We couldn't see the ceiling at all, only faint fluorescent light shining from somewhere far above, trying its best to illuminate the darkness and failing. Everything was dim, shadowy and strange.

The "plants" down here, made of concrete, steel and glass, should've been rigid, unmovable. But they weren't. When I touched the faux grass, it bent softly beneath my fingers. When I leaned into the trunk of a tree, it swayed like it was wooden, springing back into place. Even the ground felt more like soil than steel.

"This whole thing feels like a bad idea," Malik muttered. "Maybe we should go back and find a way to the roof instead."

He turned to look behind us, then froze. "Oh no."

We all turned to follow his gaze.

We weren't at the entrance anymore.

Somehow, we were deep inside the jungle.

To drive the point home, a distant roar echoed through the space, low and guttural. A moment later came the frantic rustling of wings and the squawk of birds scattering somewhere in the dark.

"How?" Peter asked, stunned.

"No idea, brother," Nick said. "Alexa, can you still feel the connection?"

I closed my eyes, focused and nodded. "Yes. I don't think it's changed at all."

"Then we might have entered a splinter."

"A what?"

"A world within a world," Nick said as we began to move again. "Sometimes an idea gets too big for the place it's meant to stay in. It grows, expands through dimensions we don't normally perceive."

"I see… I was already in one. I got my second soulmark there."

"Yeah. A lot of soulmarks are hidden in places like this. But splinters can be dangerous too. They have their own rules. The entire Mirrored City is technically a splinter."

We moved slowly through the thick foliage. The steel-and-glass jungle surrounded us, silent and ominous.

I pulled three cards from my holders, slipped them between my fingers like claws and without thinking, slashed at the dense brush in front of me. Despite being made of unyielding materials, the plants cut apart like they were normal undergrowth.

Nick did something similar, still new to him and shifted his fingers. They elongated, hardened, reshaped into long, sharp talons.

"I ate chicken for dinner," he said casually and then helped me push through the dense wall of trees.

We were attacked without warning.

One second, we were hacking our way forward. The next, something massive slammed into me, pinning me down. Its crystalline fists pounded my body and it hurt.

"You suck!" It shouted, over and over again.

Fortunately, Malik reacted instantly. He punched the thing with everything he had and his golden-purple shadowlight burst into the air like a mirrored echo, crashing into the creature and blasting it off me. I scrambled to my feet just in time to see Peter wrestling with another one of them, grabbing its neck in a tight hold, trying to wrench it off Nickolas.

Nick had already sprouted bone-like quills across his back, sharp as fish spines, impaling the creature, but it kept thrashing wildly, refusing to die.

Me and Malik rushed in. I kicked; he punched. The echoes of Malik's strikes slammed into the beast like hammers. Soon, it stopped moving.

We took a moment to breathe and to finally look at what we were dealing with.

It was humanoid in shape, with something that looked like a VR helmet fused into its face. Its skin, or perhaps its shell, was made of pinkish crystal, glossy and semi-translucent. Bigger than a normal person, but not quite imposing. It had the awkward, unbalanced proportions of someone skinny-fat. And across its crystalline surface, strings of numbers and letters kept flickering, appearing and vanishing, like code refreshing on a webpage.

"Nick?" I asked, hoping he had something, anything, for me.

He looked down at it, gave it one more kick for good measure, then shrugged and turned away without a word.

I sighed and we continued our strange little march into the unknown.

"Thanks for the help, Malik," I said as I returned to slashing through the bizarre foliage.

"Uno problemo, Usagi," he replied.

"Okay, man, why do you have to make it awkward? First off, Usagi is for when I'm masked and dealing with outsiders. Use common sense. Second, 'uno problemo' doesn't mean 'no problem.' The correct phrase is no hay problema."

"I… didn't know that. What does uno problemo mean then?"

"Closest translation? 'One problem.'"

"You speak Spanish?" Nick asked between hacks at the concrete underbrush.

"She speaks Spanish, Portuguese and some Japanese," Peter answered before I could.

"And Russian," I added. "You kinda have to, in my line of work."

Well, former line of work. I'd have to figure out a new professional path for myself when, or if, this all calms down.

"What line of work was that exactly?" Malik continued, tone casual but curious.

"I was a thief. Worked for a very bad man. Met people speaking those languages often enough that learning was a matter of survival."

"And now you're a hero. What an origin story," Malik said with an awkward smile.

"I'm no hero, boy."

"You ran off, left everything behind to save both Peter and this other guy out there. And we're apparently in a place that's beyond dangerous. Seems pretty heroic to me."

"Bad people can do good things too. Doesn't make them heroes."

"It does, to the people they save," Malik said softly.

I didn't respond. No point arguing. Especially not when I noticed Peter shifting uncomfortably next to me.

I glanced at him. Why did that comment bother him?

Was he thinking about me? Seeing me as one of the bad people, despite all this?

Why should it even matter to me?

But it did.

I was a bad person. And yet… the thought of Peter believing that, seeing me that way, felt… uncomfortable. To say the least.

I pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the link between me and the necklace Jason was carrying. It was shifting, moving in relation to us, but it also felt closer now. We were gaining on it.

Or… the Unreflected was coming to us.

Good news. Maybe.

"What the…?" Nick muttered as we stepped into a clearing. He was pretty spot-on with that question. I might've added just a word. Maybe two.

Before us stood a massive concrete pillar, wide as a tree trunk and just as tall, but unnatural in every other way. From its sides sprouted strange leaves, shaped like warped satellite dishes, twisted solar panels. Wires coiled around the trunk like vines, a mesh of electrical cables and optic fibers running outward, connecting to the unmoving figures below.

Dozens of them.

They stood beneath the pillar, slack-jawed, their faces frozen in expressionless stares. Greenish saliva dripped from their mouths in long, wet strands. Each one had wires jacked directly into the base of their skulls.

And their skin, smooth and glassy like a polished screen, flickered with endless streams of website feeds. Scrolling social media posts, one after another. Every bit of text flashing below them was a comment. Nasty. Vicious. Ugly. Hate made manifest.

Peter stepped forward and stared. "Are those like… internet trolls?"

I nodded slowly. "Yeah. Not metaphorical ones either."

"That's both incredibly cool and very disturbing," Peter added, while Malik circled cautiously around the trolls, Nick close behind. We soon joined them, trying to move quietly past the strange scene, but of course, subtlety wasn't on the menu today.

From between the trees ahead, something massive emerged.

A giant.

Not the kind from fairytales, no. This one looked like the physical manifestation of a toxic forum moderator gone eldritch. Obese beyond comprehension, he wore a t-shirt several sizes too small, which strained over his mound of a belly and left most of it exposed. Greasy black hair hung like wilted weeds around a face overgrown with a wild, patchy beard, both so unkempt they felt like separate creatures clinging parasitically to their host.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He was propped up by two stubby legs that looked like they might collapse any moment and in one grossly oversized arm, he carried a hammer unlike any I'd ever seen. It was forged from obsidian, thick and heavy, but intricately embossed with golden circuitry patterns glowing faintly beneath the surface. At its head blazed a bright neon sign, glaring in angry red: Ban!

His eyes swept across the clearing, first landing on us, then shifting toward the trolls. His face twisted with glee as he bellowed at the top of his lungs:

"I'm banning all of you!"

Shit escalated quickly from that point forward.

The trolls woke up instantly. The artificial veins connecting them to whatever grotesque feed they were consuming snapped back into the internet tree, slithering like frightened eels. They were stunned for a heartbeat, just long enough to shake off the digital haze, then they turned and saw the giant swinging his hammer wildly. With a shriek of corrupted code and glitching eyes, they charged him.

Because, oh yes, the other thing that happened?

The giant swiped at us.

I jumped up onto one of the strange concrete trees to get a better vantage point. From there, I threw my eye-cards in wide arcs toward other high points and twisted branches, laying out a full panoramic view of the chaos below. I wanted to see it all. I didn't want to miss anything important.

Anansi, please direct my attention if needed.

[You got it.] she answered inside my head. My friendly neighborhood spider, always watching.

Peter was the first to move. Without hesitation, he sprinted toward the giant, slid between its mountainous legs and began climbing up its back. His suit let him stick effortlessly, even to the creature's disgustingly greasy skin. He moved like a shadow, determined and agile.

Malik, meanwhile, backed up slowly. His arms crossed in front of him in a defensive posture, not blocking anything yet, but preparing the space. Then came the swing. The hammer crashed down at just the right moment,—

—and one of Malik's shadowlight echoes manifested, perfectly mirroring the earlier block. It intercepted the hammer mid-swing, redirecting the force, sending a shockwave through the clearing and unbalancing the giant. Malik grinned as he stumbled back, his strategy working like a charm.

Nick didn't wait. He was already a full-blown artillery unit, spawning fishbone after fishbone and launching them like a machine gun. They rained down on the approaching trolls, pinning them to each other, to the trees, to the ground. He slowed their advance, but only slowed it. They were still coming.

And now my boys, my dear, reckless boys, were caught in between.

Two enemy forces, one battlefield and chaos everywhere.

A real sweet welcome to the jungle.

I shifted focus. First priority: Nickolas. He was pinned down, holding back a sea of trolls and beginning to lose momentum. I needed to buy him time.

I slipped my sound cards between my fingers again and threw them wide, targeting the ground behind the approaching troll horde. I whispered to each one, commanding them to become the ping of a new post, fresh bait for hungry minds.

The cards struck the floor and lit up like sparks. In a blink, the trolls at the rear jerked their heads toward the sound, their attention hijacked. They stumbled over each other, drawn to the illusion of a fresh feed.

Good. Now the fun part.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the thunderballs. Only six left. I hadn't used them in a while, last time was a total bust, but this time? This time they'd shine.

"Nick!" I shouted. "Can you spray them with water somehow?"

"Water!" he barked between launches. "Is not…"—another of his quills flew out—"…a food!" he finished with absolute exasperation.

What a painfully narrow view. If he only thought differently… water could be food, in the right context. But no time for philosophy.

I tightened my grip, took aim and hurled the first thunderball at the thickest cluster of trolls. Shadowlight cracked from my palm into the orb as it left my hand my electricity guiding it like a live wire.

The ball shot through the air like a cannon shot, slamming directly into the chest of one troll. The impact flattened him to the ground like he'd been struck by lightning and then he was. The electricity surged through his body and leapt to the others he was touching. The whole group spasmed and collapsed, twitching like dominoes falling in slow motion.

I threw another ball, this one at the pack nearly on top of Nick. They'd almost reached him. Almost.

The ball struck. Another blast of force. Another chain of bodies collapsing into the dirt like puppets with cut strings.

Nick took a breath. I saw his stance steady. Good. That was two groups down.

I jumped down, landing hard and infused Ella into her baton form. The moment she solidified in my grip, I pressed the painted switch, electricity surged through her like a living current.

The trolls swarmed me. Their mouths spilled garbage at rapid fire: "You and your mother suck!", "You're fat!", "You know nothing about the world!", "The prequel was better!", "The sequel should never have been made!" and on and on, pure nonsense dressed as venom. I fought back. I struck the nearest ones with crackling arcs from Ella's charged core, ducked their wild swings, kicked and punched with my free hand.

At one point I grabbed three cards, slipped them between my fingers like claws and sliced through the mob, carving space with precise, razor-edged swipes.

Nick was by my side, thank the Reality. He launched volleys of fishbone projectiles, hammering the swarm. When they got too close, he switched tactics, his hands now coated in crystallized salt, cracking into jaws and skulls with sharp, gritty strikes. He fought to push the horde aside, carving a path for him and Malik to retreat. The goal? Get out of the way and let the trolls slam into the hammer-wielding giant without us caught between.

But the giant… he didn't care about the trolls. His focus was locked solely on Nick and Echo, as if they were the true threat. The ones who deserved the ban.

In the air, echo materialized, arms outstretched, catching the hammer mid-swing in a two-handed block. The force of impact rippled through space like a shockwave. Malik used the moment to reposition, dancing sideways. He threw a few lazy punches, mock strikes, feints, waiting for the perfect opening to echo them into real blows when the time was right.

Meanwhile, Peter finished his ascent.

He climbed the grotesque giant with unshakable precision. Greasy skin, wild tendrils, it didn't matter. The suit clung to surfaces like he was gravity-proof. As if to mock my earlier comment, the giant's beard and hair transformed, dozens of squirming tendrils whipping and lashing at him.

Peter flowed between them like water, every movement efficient, graceful, lethal. He flipped from shoulder to shoulder, grabbed one of the longer hair-tentacles and ran across the giant's face like it was a tightrope. With every twist and flip, he tangled the living hair around itself, until it formed a massive knot right across the giant's eyes.

Blinded, the beast clawed at its face, trying to pull the hair away. One arm reached up. The other… dropped the hammer.

The hammer hit the ground like a church bell's cry. A deep, echoing hum shivered through the concrete jungle.

Instantly, all of the trolls collapsed.

Not dead, just off, like someone had unplugged the hate machine.

The giant was too busy trying to claw the mess off his face to care about anything else now. He stumbled in circles, muttering and grunting. Peter, cool as ever, slid down from the giant's shoulder, landed on the ground with a roll and ran to join Nick and Malik.

"Couldn't he have hit the ground earlier?" Nick asked, catching his breath as we regrouped, finally clear of the horde.

"You're welcome to ask him," I replied. "But I say we bail and let him deal with the trolls again after he can see."

"Good idea," Peter agreed, right as the air suddenly warped, growing hot enough to sting. A long, searing jet of flame erupted from the side. I caught a glimpse of the approaching drake a second too early, just enough time to grab Peter and Malik and throw us all to the ground. Nick dropped beside us on instinct.

We lay there, perfectly still, as the drake slammed into the giant like a living cannonball, crashing its full weight down and flattening the behemoth. The fire hit first, roasting the giant's upper body, followed by the full fury of talons and teeth.

The drake tore into the giant's flesh without hesitation, raking and ripping, then devouring great steaming chunks of meat now freed from bone and skin.

We didn't wait around.

We crawled, slow and silent, toward the shelter of the nearest trees. I monitored everything through my eye-cards, adjusting as we moved, pulling back my authority from those that drifted out of range.

Once we were safely between the trees again, under cover, we all got to our feet.

And ran.

"Lex, maybe it'd be a good idea to portal out of here and choose another path?" Nick's voice carried a tremble, understandable, after what we'd just seen.

"Let's push through," Peter said firmly. "We saw the drake both here and out there. In here, at least we can hide."

I liked his thinking. Still, I hadn't done everything in my power to keep them safe, not yet. I reached into my holder, pulled out three Eye cards and infused them, sight and sound, perception and presence. Then I handed one to Nick first.

"I think Peter's right," I said. "Don't get me wrong, that thing scared me too. But this whole place is dangerous. Who's to say what's out there isn't worse?" Nick took the card with a nod.

Anansi, I whispered mentally, keep these three feeds running quietly in the background, especially the auditory.

I handed the other two cards to Peter and Malik. Anansi worked her wonders.

"You're right, Alexa. These cards, are they active?" Peter asked, turning his in his hand.

"They are. Keep them close but hidden. If we get separated, take them out. I'll be able to hear and see through them. Show me anything that stands out and maybe it'll be enough for me to connect to that location and portal in."

Peter arched an eyebrow. "Don't you need to be there first to open a portal?"

"I do. But these cards, they're extensions of me. Maybe that link will be enough. I've never tried it before. Probably not ideal to test in a panic, but even if I can't portal straight to you, I'll still be able to track you, hear your voice, see what you see and feel the connection."

They all nodded, taking it in.

"Let's hope you don't have to use them," Nick said quietly.

"Yeah," I replied. "Let's hope."

Once the dragon's cries faded into the distance, we stood up and continued our journey into the depths of this shadowed, concrete jungle. Despite the brutal geometry of steel, glass and cables, there were signs of… life. Graffiti here and there, tags that made no sense, but also paintings that looked like lucid dreams gone feral. Portraits, animals, faces staring back from crumbling walls.

It reminded me of when I first started with graffiti. Stencils and tape, cutting everything ahead of time. I ditched that fast. Freehand gave me more freedom, more edge. Good call, in hindsight. I can't imagine dragging stencils through this place, let alone setting up to cut new ones mid-run. The cans themselves were difficult to use under pressure.

We moved in silence for an unknown stretch of time, each of us simmering in our own soup of thoughts. The graffiti we passed along the way occasionally pulled us out of our heads. One piece made all of us pause.

It was a river, painted directly onto the concrete floor. But unlike anything I could ever create, unlike any identity I could instill into my work, this river behaved like water. Actual water. Just like most things in this place, it mimicked real-life behavior, no matter the medium.

We waded knee-deep through its current, its painted current and fish, also painted, swam lazily by us. As we emerged on the far side, we were wet. Not with water, but with paint. It dripped off us like rain, never clinging, never staining. Just flowing away.

"Maybe you could drink this, Nick?" I asked, half serious, half teasing.

"Funny again?" he replied dryly.

"No, I'm serious. This is—quirky. It behaves like water even though it's made from paint on concrete. Maybe if you drank it and thought of water as food, you could make yourself hard like concrete?"

"So you are being serious," he said, giving me a look as we kept walking.

I nodded. "This place runs on interpretation and identity. Seems fair to test it, doesn't it?"

"Well… maybe," he admitted. "But I'm not about to chug concrete to satisfy your curiosity. I've already got plenty of good combat-oriented food in my gut."

"But this is magical," I insisted. "You should experiment more. I wish we'd killed that drake, imagine you eating that."

"That," he said, glancing at me with genuine interest, "I would've liked to try. But let's be real, we wouldn't have made it. That thing would've burned us to crisps. Fire's its Domain. Not just flames, Authority fire."

"So your magic light wouldn't protect you?" Peter asked from behind.

"It'd try," Nick said plainly, "but it'd fail instantly."

And we all believed him. He was probably right.

We heard the drake roar a few more times in the distance. Thankfully, each time it sounded farther away, less immediate. The path we hacked through trees and bushes startled some of the smaller critters: birds, mice, even a few scurrying lizards. But nothing that looked like it wanted to pick a fight.

Soon, we began to notice light in the distance, faint at first, just a soft shimmer against the shadows. But with every step, it grew. Brighter. Closer. More certain. It pulsed with promise and most importantly, it aligned with the direction the necklace, Jason's necklace, was pulling us toward.

It was a way out.

At least, that's what we thought.

The problem was, unlike the portal we used to enter, this one… this one was guarded.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.