Afterwards, we went out for drinks. Trevor eventually found me in a bar, on my second gin tonic. We were at the silly baseball bar again. Emilia had broken one of the bats by swinging too hard. Then, Marie had quickly repaired it with some magic.

Afterwards, Matt had to whittle it down with a summoned little knife, because the nature magic had made it sprout branches. People had been scared at first, but eventually turned to laughter, when they figured we wanted no trouble.

"I see you've brought me some extra work again," Trevor said, taking a seat on a barstool next to me. His words were without any malice and he wore an easy smile underneath his sunglasses.

"Join my guild, and someone else has to deal with it," I teased.

He laughed. "Hah! Dream on, Fio. Could you give me a report on the gate, Ms. Bellum?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Ivan can fill you in, I'm su-"

"Too drunk!" my sneaky brother countered. "Sorry, but three mojitos are too much for people with mundane constitutions."

"You're not at all mundane-"

Trevor gave me a gentle smile, and polite chuckle. "Come on. Just give a report, and I'll let you be on your way. It's four a.m., and I wanna be in bed, too."

With my most dramatic sigh, I agree, laying down what we'd seen in the gate. The dinosaur-like creatures, their names, weaknesses, the way Echo seemed to interact with Qi. I told him all about our encounter with Zinnic, and he grimaced a little bit.

"Trouble. Always trouble… Zinnic had its Ace-Rankers there? All three?"

I nodded. "Yeah. White Tiger, Black Swan, Eagleeye."

His lips twisted into a frown. "And no conclusive evidence who was there first?"

"Not really," I shook my head. "Arrived at abouts the same time."

A small sigh left Trevor's lips. "Well, whatever. Nothing much will come of it, probably. Zinnic might raise a bit of a stink, but at the end of the day, it's one gate. Only so much pressure they can apply."

"Right, right. I'll let you handle it, then?"

Trevor nodded, then rose a little. He ran a hand through his stark-black hair, staring through a window out onto the dimly lit streets. "Well. I'll see about any backlash. Keeping bad press down and all that." Then he smiled. "You might see some reports with your nickname, though…"

I paled. "Oh, no please."

"Radiant Beacon, was it?" he grinned. "Well. I'll be off, lady Radiance," he said, giving me a bow.

I slapped my hand against my face, waving him off with the other, while Matt burst out howling with laughter. "Be quiet, Rat."

He grinned. "That's lord Blossom to you."

"Wanna get strangled?"

"Try me."

"Kids," Maria chided. "Peace, please."

We laughed it off, and the evening went on. Nicknames from the public were a pain.

First Reya was titled Saintess, and from then it spread like a plague. Ann was Hurricane, Emilia was Shining Knight, Marie titled Nature Veil, Liam was Nightmare, Matt Blossom Dreams, and I was Radiant Beacon.

I sighed, slapping my face with my hand. 'How… stupid!'

But such was the fate of celebrities. "Oh divines," I mourned. "I'm a celebrity."

Matt laughed so hard he fell off his chair.

- - -

The days drifted by. After the big change, there was a week without any new gates. Things were peaceful, and the normalcy of it all was suffocating. I found the time to go to an amusement park with Ann, even if she had to cast a veil over our faces to keep us from being recognized. And even if it was a little rundown.

Frankly, it was a bit disappointing. The rollercoasters lost much of their luster when I could run faster than they fell at the peak of it all. But the cotton candy was lovely.

I visited Rae again, and I sparred with everyone else. Zinnic employees came by to purchase our guild and left with their hair a little shorter. Things remained calm, day in, day out.

My mind drifted, and sometimes I'd wonder how things were in Eden. Whether they were alright, whether they needed help… Then again, the eclipse had just ended, and the usurpers had started a new war on Nemahan. Their resources were a little more split, probably.

The keepers, too, had their attention on me - and I was wondering when they would next come after my gateway.

So many of their attacks were staged in the astral realm… Which was a whole different story.

Cass was fighting them off. Many were simple control plays, wrangling domains, testing my willpower, pushing against that ethereal sphere of influence I had. They took cheap potshots at my gateway, trying to snatch it - and were thwarted by my own keeper at every turn.

My little Cass had grown into quite the ferocious protector. She was processing so much information for me, helpfully synthesizing descriptions, maintaining monitoring on my [Transference] network, and also protecting me in the astral.

Any attack was stopped in its tracks. Maybe we'd have to work on some retaliation soon, if the peace lasted.

Unfortunately, it did not last. As I said, many attacks from the keepers came from the astral. Which is why I was rather caught off guard when one came knocking at my front door.

The doorbell rang when I was the closest to it, so I told the other's I'd get it. Probably just Zinnic, anyway, right? They came knocking each day, and left disappointed each day.

Except, when I opened the door, the person I found was nondescript. They were almost bizarrely average. Their clothes were average, they were neither tall nor short, their hair wasn't straight, but not particularly wavey, either…

And something about them was indescribably, horribly, off.

"Hello," they said, speaking with an accent I couldn't quite determine. "Are you Ms. Fiona Bellum?"

The hair on the back of my neck rose. "Who's asking?"

"Me," the creature replied with a tilt of their head. "Surely you would not forget your cousin, Summer."

I nodded. "Right, yeah, sorry. Summer." The name felt disgustingly familiar in my mouth. I shook my head at how unusual it all felt. "It's been a while. How have you been?" I asked.

Stolen story; please report.

They smiled. "Just fine, thank you. With all the recent uproar, I figured I'd come here to be safe. May I come in?"

[Say no,] Cass whispered in my ear.

'What? Why?' I asked her back.

"Fio?" Summer asked, in that melodic cadence. "What's wrong? Won't you allow me inside?"

I blinked, holding my head. It was hurting. Licking my lips, I tasted iron wetness. I touched them, and my fingers came away red. My nose was bleeding. What?

"Please?" Summer asked. "Come on. It's cold out."

The world cracked and I shivered. "It's… summer, isn't it?"

"What do you mean? I'm Summer," the faceless figure replied. I blinked and their brows were furrowed in confusion when I opened my eyes.

"I- Wha-" My mind felt so sluggish. "Give me a minute."

They frowned. "Please, Fio. It's cold out."

My hand touched my forehead. It was warm- the thought died in my throat. I shivered. Yeah, it was freezing. "Right, right. Co-"

[Bell. Listen to me.]

I furrowed my brows. Why was there a voice in my head. It was supposed to be quiet in there… Confused, I smacked my head lightly.

The force sent me slamming into the doorframe, which splintered easily underneath my prodigiously tough body. But that made no sense - human flesh wasn't tougher than wood.

Yet, mine was. Blood dripped from my nose to the ground.

"Fio. Let me in," Summer asked. Their face was so close to mine. I could see their eyes, grey and deep as an abyss. I saw myself reflected in them, and them reflected in my eyes in turn. My vision was so detailed, I saw that their reflection in my eyes had no face.

No face at all, just a blank slate of skin.

I shivered. "What are you?"

The world broke like a mirror, splintering into a thousand glass shards. The skin on Summer's face crumbled away like a faint dream, revealing a smoothly polished mirror mannequin.

"Ahhh, such a shame," their voice rang in my head, abominably loud. Like someone had rang a titanic gong inside it. I grimaced, grinding my teeth.

Wincing, gasping for air, I sent out another incarnation of me. In a parallel reality, I ran, getting more distance from this being.

Except, that didn't happen. Summer stretched their hand out back and caught my alternate self by the throat. The world lurched, and the two realities fused back together, and I found myself dangling in their grip.

"Don't run, Fio. You'll catch a cold," their voice said. It was cruel, now. Sneering. Hungry.

My eyes widened.

[Bell. Open your inventory, grab your spear.]

The voice in my head sounded again. This one felt warm, trustworthy. Right, right. I liked spears, yes, that made sense. My [Iron Will] clamped down on the fractured world, pulling my mind back together.

I felt a howl, air rushing to fill the vacuum as a rift in space tore open next to me. My hand closed around a haft, and I pulled forth my spear - Astraeus, the name came to me. Right. Yes. Yes!

In a rush, the memories came in. I was Fiona Bellum. I didn't have a cousin named Summer at all. Their skin crumbled all over, revealing that the thing holding me up was entirely made of glass. A puppet, suspended by mirror strings.

My windpipe bent under their hold, leaving me gasping for air. I felt myself being pushed, the life squeezed out of me. The way I was dragged to the precipice by this thing.

… The precipice.

That rang familiar, too.

A pair of wings spread behind my back. My spear lashed out, striking against the glass with a horrid ripple, carving a chunk out of it. Radiance brushed against the glass, making the puppet look as though cast from liquid gold.

I grinned. "I'll cut your strings, fucker."

The keeper chuckled hoarsely. "You shall try." Then, it hurled me aside, tossing me.

My mind raced as I arced through the air. Qi coalesced inside my veins, already gathering behind me to stop my momentum, then the world shattered. The air itself turned into broken pieces of a mirror, and I fell through it, crystalline light bending and breaking around me.

Whispers tore against my mind. A thousand glass hands, attached to puppets attached to strings, each one grasping for me. I screamed and my voice cracked like glass, then shattered into numbing silence.

[This is Possession,] Cass warned me. [One of the keepers we saw. An avatar, it seems. They are the greediest of the bunch.]

I nodded, feeling like a foreigner in my body. It was all different, refracted. When I wanted my head to bob up, it moved downwards. Inside my head, Cass grimaced.

[Its domain is manipulation. Insidious and cruel. Right now, it has scrambled your senses, and brought you into a mirror realm made for puppets.]

'How do I fight it?' I thought back.

My wings flared behind me, Astraeus guiding my hand to shatter a grasping hand. The glass crystals dissolved into the mirror air around me. It was as much of a maze as it was a prison.

Summer appeared before me, and their glass hand struck my abdomen like a boulder, making me double over and slide backwards. Gold erupted from me, but turned lusterless a moment later.

[Avatars aren't limitless. Outlast it.]

I grimaced. That sounded like pain. Gently, I shook my head. No, that wouldn't do.

Brutally, determined, I thrust forward - except, in the mirrored world, I sent my empty hand out, rather than the one I grasped Astraeus in. The mirror creature grasped my outstretched hand, and pulled.

My muscles resisted, then tore, then I superimposed myself over the damage, turning it whole again. My arm rebelled against its socket, but my face remained impassive and calm.

This dimension was made of mirrors, right? Fine. My affinity for them was just as great as this keeper's, after all.

I closed my eyes, breathing out, bracing, then pulled back my spear-hand.

Of course, my sensation was flipped. So, instead, I tore off the puppet's glass arm. It felt so brittle in my grip. Instantly, another one formed from ambient mirrors, reassembling the avatar.

"You will be mine," it snarled.

"Piss off," I replied. I struck forth with my empty hand again, except this time, I willed a spear to exist there. I was at the peak of wellspring, a prodigy with my chosen weapon, and my wings were spread behind my back. I could summon spears from thin air, and did not need to hold them to wield them.

When my hand stretched out, the malignant glass encased it - then shattered.

A thousand mirrors broke, as my invisible spear pierced each and every last one of them. The air vibrated with power. My Qi coursed through my body, and I kept it there. Reinforcing me.

I was not wielding that golden power. This was simply my will. My belief that anything I wanted to pierce would break before me. I drew my hand back, and in that motion twirled the invisible copy of Astraeus. My breath left my lips, and came out sharp and piercing.

"Come at me," I told the puppet.

A million grasping hands descended in reply.

Mirror shards dug into my back, opening cuts on my skin - which then closed again, trapping the glass inside, where it melted and became mine. Without the influence of the realm - of the strings - I subsumed them. Building my gateway. Stealing from Possession.

It enraged it.

The puppet roared. A thousand strings of sharp glass curled around me, but my skin was tough. They caused minor lacerations, then halted. I breathed, and then remembered that there was no air here, not really. Yet, I was breathing.

With a smile, I gathered air in my lungs and blew at the puppet with all the force of a peak wellspring cultivator.

My breath, itself, was recognized as a spear. When I imposed my will on it, the invisible, surreal weapon shot forth, and shattered the glass sphere that served as the puppet's head. The realm quaked, glass cracking and splintering as the avatar reformed.

The grasping hands stopped, aimless, and instantly, tiny spears shot from me, darting through the air and shattering limb after limb. My wings were made from shards of golden glass, turning into a hurricane around me.

Possession reformed, reaching for me once more, scrambling my senses, making me think I already belonged to it, but my [Iron Will] carved through that, too. I was my own. My very path necessitated freedom. I struggled, brutally, against the imposed sky, at the invulnerable immortal before me.

Inch by inch, we battled. My skin was flayed, turned bloody, and its glass was broken and subsumed into my skin. I couldn't use any of my alternate reality abilities, but it hardly mattered at all. It wasn't a fighter, I was.

Bit by bit, it broke. Shattered, over and over, robbed of its power as my spears cut it apart. A torrent of glass and gold spun around us, rebuilding its crumbling body over and over. I grinned, savagely, blood flowing from a dozen tiny cuts on my lips.

Desperately, it reached for my mind again, but its attempts were severed by golden radiance. My wings unfurled and enveloped that avatar, holding it still like a dozen grasping hands.

Astraeus, my true spear, the weapon I was one with, sailed forth for the first time… and missed.

Instead of hitting the puppet at all, I struck above it.

The world froze.

Ethereal strings that looked woven from diamond sailed down, the puppet collapsing into a heap. I grinned. Then, I put my hand onto the avatar… and pulled.

A malicious, horribly furious will crashed into mine like a tidal wave - and yet slid off. I had seen the stars in the chest of the puppet, and they were already extinguishing. No, this thing was no match for me. A partial manifestation on a world as limited as my own would never beat me. Not now, not ever, not on Neamhan.

Instead, I pulled, and pulled more. The power flooded into me, and I felt my gateway grow. The malignant will was purged, stripped, and tossed into my budding stars as fuel. The puppet was broken and dismantled, and the mirror world stood quiet.

[Well,] Cass said. [That was… Different than I expected.]

I smiled. 'No more running,' I told her.

My astral friend chuckled. [Well, we do still need to get out of here.]

The smile on my lips grew a little more. I struck out with Astraeus, splitting the mirrors.

Instantly, I felt heat brush against my face, and smelled the scent of plum blossoms. 'Shouldn't take too long,' I replied. 'We seem to be rather good at walking between worlds these days.'

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