Mesmerizing Betrayal
The trap was finally set, all that remained was for all the pieces to play their part. Khaexyn continued on his efforts, focusing on the world’s veil, as his greatest weapon ever went on the prowl.
Mhyl found herself in yet another familiar area. This would be the place where they had rested on the first night, narrowly escaping from capture. Recalling such thoughts, she wasn’t very inclined to rest there, but was going over her thoughts to see if she could get her bearings. However, at this point, she couldn’t even recall if they had made a right or left after exiting the room. All of this had felt so long ago, the details were so fleeting for her. The fact that things were so run down wasn’t helping jog her memory either.
As she pondered the answer, a small sphere floated towards her. Mhyl set to her guard out of reflex, before recognizing it. This was one of Lwyn’s things, Lwyn did this? It hovered over her head for a moment as she pondered its design. Then, as programmed, it set off again. Mhyl ran after it, knowing that Lwyn expected her to follow it. If she was lucky, it would lead her right to Lwyn. She carefully followed it along the halls, which had grown especially quiet. She glanced around, wondering why there wasn’t any more defenses all of a sudden. Easily keeping pace, she followed the sphere until it lead her to another familiar location. This was the place they had first found Sxeiva, outside where they were basically keeping people captive. She remembered when they had passed here, searching for Lwyn. The sphere continued inside.
Mhyl followed it until she found Lwyn, tied up with strange shackles in one of the cells, looking very tired. “Lwyn!” Mhyl’s shout alerted Lwyn, who hid her excitement at her plan coming together. Instead, Yhse used the short smirk she couldn’t hide to bluff her excitement at being rescued. “Mhyl! Thank goodness that worked. They.. took me captive. These cuffs, they stop me from using my gift, but I managed to get that one sphere out there. Don’t get too close to them, just drop something on the chain or something, if the chain breaks the effects will wear off.” Yhse of course was making all of this up. The chains binding her were completely natural, she could easily break free on her own at any time if she wanted. Mhyl however followed instructions, cautiously setting Yhse free. Mhyl gave some idle thought just how come Lwyn might have been aware exactly how such shackles worked, but knew Lwyn was pretty smart, so that probably explained it.
With that done, it was time for the next step. Yhse summoned two spheres, with instructions to find the other two, follow them, and to flash brightly if it returned too close to her. It was like setting an alarm for their approach. After Mhyl was taken care of, she could try to restart the whole process with Thanrie, repeating the whole thing another time for Qheria as well. She knew the spheres would prompt the two to search for her instead of her father, which would also give him the time he needed to finish his work. Mhyl however looked at the two spheres in confusion, wondering what that was about. Yhse caught on to the confusion, and gave an explanation. “Oh, I’m still looking for Qheria, but I actually found Thanrie. She’s in trouble, we have to go save her!” Yhse built urgency to encourage Mhyl to keep going.
Mhyl however still felt confused, something wasn’t right. “Lwyn, what about you? You were weakened a lot there, are you sure you’re alright?” “Oh, I’m doing fine, don’t worry. Lets just hurry.” Mhyl noticed the return of Lwyn’s plastic smile, that fake smile that showed she was being kept from something, which just caused her to worry even more. Even Yhse was not aware to what degree Mhyl had grown capable of detecting this of her best friend. She followed along anyway, keeping an eye on Lwyn the entire time. Eventually, they arrived at a tunnel going down, a faint dark glow humming from below.
“Thanrie and I had gone down there, when suddenly the lights went dim like this. Thanrie had suddenly freaked out, and we got ambushed. I had stayed behind as Thanrie had fled through the room into the area beyond it. I heard the guards saying they were going to lock the place down, because there was no other escape. Thanrie would be trapped in here, we have to save her!” Yhse marvelled at how well this story worked, how inviting it was. From here, it would only get better. Mhyl looked down, not seeing much of anything in the darkness, not even being aware that the room was mostly flooded at this distance. Two weaknesses in one setup, it was perfect. When Yhse brought Thanrie here, she would just need to turn the lights back on and comment about Mhyl and the water. Yhse could then just get the lights to fail again, putting Thanrie in this eerie darkness.
Mhyl looked down, finding it especially weird that Lwyn wasn’t bursting ahead of her like normal. Mhyl had grown used to needing to keep up, something here was really wrong. Figuring out that Lwyn expected Mhyl to go first, she set off down the ladder into the darkness. “Make sure to search down there carefully, we don’t know where an enemy might show up or something.” Yhse shouted down at her as she also descended. Mhyl tried to scan the room with her headset, but saw a lot of nothing. Something in the room was interfering with her headset. Mhyl then summoned a light to help her see better, as she continued leading the way. It became quickly obvious that the room was huge, with her light failing to pierce the darkness in all directions, the minor existing lights failing to show anything of value due to being so dim. Mhyl also had her book ready, keeping a careful eye out for any enemies. She noticed Lwyn also had her crossbow ready, glancing around casually.
Having progressed far enough into the room, Yhse focused on her crossbow, taking aim on her real target. Mhyl noticed Lwyn focusing, but could see no target anywhere. There wasn’t anyone here but.. her. Yhse fired, and Mhyl went invisible, dodging forwards with an aerial flip. The bolt struck right where she used to be, unable to track her very well through her invisibility. Mhyl did not drop the stealth, but her landing made audible noise for Yhse to pick up on. Since Yhse herself was fighting blind, she summoned a series of spheres, so that she could engage her enemy in melee. She hadn’t actually had time to figure out the trick to Mhyl’s stealth, so this was kinda annoying.
Seeing the spheres summoned, Mhyl focused with her book and stepped off of the landing into thin air. Landing upon her invisible platform, she took to the air. Yhse found her attacks reaching nothing. However, she knew of a slight advantage. The room itself was very cold, the ice water cooling things down as they advanced. Yhse and Mhyl were the warmest things in the room. Heat-seeking shots, excluding herself as a target. If they tracked her by heat alone, that would do it. Yhse fired bolts into the air, which spun around and set out after their mid air target. Mhyl narrowly dodged the bolts, but fell from her floating platform in the process. She used her gift to decrease the impact of her fall, having fallen a couple of levels. Descending this far, Yhse’s trap was no longer hidden by darkness. Not far below Mhyl was an endless expanse of freezing cold water, the chill of the sight going straight up her spine as the shots Yhse sent off ended up passing into the cold water and lost their course in the cold. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, a trap.
“So this is what you were hiding. Really, I should have guessed.” “Huh? What exactly gave everything away?” “Oh come on, really? You’re nothing like Thanrie, you’re probably the worst liar imaginable.” Mhyl was actually only half serious, her fear hiding the other half. She knew Lwyn was a pro at hiding her feelings, that’s probably why she was so good at that board game. But after the time they had spent together, she had learned to spot all the signs of when Lwyn was keeping something from her. This was probably the first time Lwyn had actually came up with such an intricate tale, direct lies clearly weren’t her strong point either.
Yhse shrugged, realizing she might have made a few miscalculations. Maybe Thanrie would have been a better choice to start with. Still, even if her surprise attack failed, she still had Mhyl exactly where she wanted her. Mhyl also realized she was in trouble. In situations like this, she would usually dodge the simple moves and obliterate her powerful enemies. Yhse wasn’t any simple enemy, but was also someone she was seriously hesitant to simply obliterate. This was her best friend here, firing on her for some still unknown reason. Mhyl was doing everything she could mostly to fight back against the her tears. The comfort was that she knew this wasn’t the Lwyn she had always known, she knew Lwyn’s feelings had been honest all that time just the same way as she could instinctively know she was being lied to now. Something had changed, something she couldn’t figure out.
Yhse fired off another heat seeker, which Mhyl targeted directly, erasing it while in the air. Yhse pondered the issue, ah, the things were too slow, made them easy to pick off. She would need attacks that flew faster against Mhyl. “Lwyn, stop it, why are you doing this?!” “Stop calling me Lwyn! I’m not your F~~~ing Lwyn” Mhyl noticed Yhse pause in fury, rejecting her very name. But if this wasn’t Lwyn, then… “So, you’re Yhse again, aren’t you. Papa’s little lap dog?” Mhyl was furious, having to fight Sxeiva was a torment, but this took the cake. Was Lwyn really lost to them, then? Was everything really just going to end like this? Just how low was Khaexyn going to sink in his depravity.
Mhyl focused on the water below her, chilling the air above it. This chill still felt like warmth to her, her own feelings as if ice to the air itself. As Yhse prepared another projectile, suddenly a lance of ice shot out from the water and surged towards her. Yhse activated one of her gravity wells, pulling her safely out of the way as the lance struck the wall behind her, freezing everything there solid. However, pulled out of the way, Yhse had a clear shot, and Mhyl had no opportunity to dodge. Mhyl was struck in the shoulder as she fell into the water.
Yhse was momentarily disappointed in herself and her moment of weakness. Surely she had better aim than that, and could strike a place much more vital. This was the healer she was fighting, any non-lethal attack could just be healed. Still, having knocked Mhyl into the water was a victory in itself. Yhse prepared to advance on her victim when she caught the flash of a bright flare above her. Wait, now? Someone else was here.
Thanrie looked down into the dark abyss, hearing the crashing occurring below. She knew there was fighting going on, and had the feeling someone was in trouble. She braved herself for a closer look and descended part of the ladder. Faintly in the dim shadows, she saw Lwyn there waiting for her. “Oh, Lwyn, what’s going on?” “Thanrie, just in time. Mhyl just fell into the water, I need help rescuing her. Do you think you can lend me a hand?” Thanrie got one of her feelings again, this one confusing her. Thanrie basically got the feeling that this whole thing was a trap. But certainly she could trust Lwyn, right? Thanrie descended the ladder, hearing everything had faded into silence.
Yhse hid a snarl at this, having figured out Mhyl had heard the conversation and wanted to turn everything into the wrong impression. Knowing that gasping for air would only lure Thanrie into the trap, Mhyl had instead opted to suffer the water longer. She used her gift to bring a bubble of air under water, and used the submerged air as a place to recover in without being heard by the surface. She tried hard to recover as quickly as possible. Thanrie meanwhile noted the absolute silence. The feeling that this was a trap was getting much harder to ignore, instead it was looking really convincing.
“Lwyn, could you explain what is going on? Nothing here is making sense, there isn’t even any sign of Mhyl. I just heard fighting not long ago, what happened?” “Oh, I was defending her when she got hit by one of them and uh.. Oh F~~k it!” Thanrie managed to block the sphere that Yhse sent surging towards her, using with her metallic claw after still having kept that ready. “Look out Thanrie, something happened to Lwyn, this whole thing is a trap.” “Mhyl, thanks, yeah.. you’re a couple moments short on that warning. Still, I had a feeling something was wrong.” Mhyl struggled out from the water as Thanrie lunged towards Yhse. Yhse however applied another gravity well to go upwards, then came smashing downwards with her sphere in a follow up. Right, Lwyn could calculate this stuff, Thanrie had almost forgotten just how bad this match-up was. She had dueled Lwyn before winning only because she was physically stronger. This however was not just a fist fight, Lwyn was making full use of her gift in addition to her cunning intellect. This was the exact match-up Thanrie had originally worried about.
Still, Thanrie had endured the same situation against the mechanical assassin of Sxeiva, this was almost the same thing. The only difference was, this was really Lwyn, she couldn’t pull out some of her best against this kind of foe, but Lwyn didn’t seem so hesitant. “F~~k, so why are we fighting Lwyn exactly?” “I told you, I’m not…!” “Yhse, not Lwyn anymore. That idiot is seriously going to pay for this.” Thanrie clued in past Yhse’s objections with Mhyl’s insight. This was somehow Khaexyn’s fault. Sending Sxeiva wasn’t enough for the deplorable maniac, he had to break Lwyn too. Realizing Lwyn was lost to them, Thanrie’s rage built along with Mhyl.
Thanrie surged into a frenzy, slashing towards Yhse ceaselessly with a chaotic swirl of claws. Yhse dodged one, only to find another was going to that space already, to then have to dodge again. Left with a chain of dodging, Yhse was unable to keep up, and got slamed by the claw, sending her into the far back wall with a crunch. The sound returned Thanrie to her senses, realizing what she was doing to her friend. Mhyl rushed over to provide healing for Yhse, only to get struck by another sphere. Yhse struggled to her feet, determined to not let her father down. Things weren’t going as well as she had first hoped, but she just needed to hold on as long as possible, even if it killed her.
Yhse advanced on Mhyl, left wide open after her careless approach. Yhse then summoned a laser blade into her hands and set it off towards Mhyl, only for Thanrie to smash into it with her scythe. Providing time by slowing the blade’s own time, Mhyl was able to get out of the way. Right, Thanrie could time freeze, that wasn’t convenient at all. Thanrie was also really good at close range, but still couldn’t beat her long range dominance. Backing off a large distance, she called forth a multitude of spheres. Sure, at this distance, Thanrie might be able to deal with one, maybe two. Not all of them. She sent the entire mass forth as an ensuant surge, all coming from different directions. Thanrie knew right away her odds of dealing with all this were slim. However, two giant pillars of ice appeared at her sides, freezing the projectiles mid flight. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she lashed out with a time freeze at those making a more direct course. A few still managed to get by, some slamming into her claw, a couple caught her by the leg.
Thanrie was starting to get a bit dizzy, her claw having taking quite a bruising so far. While it looked useful to block with, she couldn’t forget that using it was akin to blocking with her own flesh and blood. Her one leg was starting to tremble to the pain, having taken quite a harsh shot. Her pride sunk in this instance too, realizing that a sharp pain to the knee really does a lot to ruin your sense of balance. Maybe that stupid silly quote wasn’t as funny as she had always thought it was. Mhyl rushed over to provide healing, only to suddenly have to dodge a large blast from Yhse. The attack didn’t strike her at all, but did force her to retreat. Yhse just knew, no matter what, she had to make sure to keep the two of them split up. Having Thanrie healed by Mhyl would only make this whole situation worse.
Qheria paused in her trail as a sphere of energy approached her, sitting there patiently. Qheria knew right away where this sphere came from, and what it would represent. This was how Lwyn would track her, which implied things had already progressed. Qheria was falling behind, she had to find the others right away, before things got any worse. She started pressing forwards with her warps much more carelessly, almost as if to outrun the sphere following her. In the nearly silent warp process, she could hear conflict far off in the distance. She headed in that direction, intent on it’s destination, already certain what she would find when she arrived. Warping towards yet another corner, the sphere following her suddenly exploded in a brilliant flare.
Qheria noticed the ladder going downwards at this point, hearing the conflict going on below. Lwyn would know she arrived, she would have to play her cards very carefully.
Luminaeris 