Chapter 260: Light
Up, Stray Dog
"Then what am I supposed to aim at? The walls? The ceiling? Give
sothing to work with here, Bubblegum."
Her eyes locked with mine, those purple irises intense in the firelight. They held a fierce intelligence that cut through her usual bored facade like a knife through paper.
"."
"What?"
"Trust , Stray Dog." She moved closer with her expression deadly serious and not a trace of her usual sarcasm anywhere to be found. Her voice dropped lower and beca almost intimate in its intensity. "Light
up."
I hesitated for exactly one second before doing as she asked. I created a controlled continuous plu of fire from my palm, close enough that she was illuminated in the orange glow but far enough that I wouldn’t actually roast her alive. The light caught in her hair and transford the indigo and pink strands into a halo of fla colors that made her look like so kind of punk rock angel.
Skylar moved into the light with her body silhouetted against the flas. She spread her arms wide like a perforr about to begin her routine, and then she activated her Aspect.
She exhaled a thick ethereal smoke from her mouth, but instead of being the dark fog I’d seen her use before sothing extraordinary happened. The smoke caught the light from my fire and absorbed it while transforming it into sothing else entirely. The particles seed to crystallize in mid-air and beca vessels for the light itself. What poured from her beca a swirling cloud of luminous phantom shapes, identical copies of us that each glowed with inner light.
Perfect doppelgangers that moved with uncanny synchronization like a hall of mirrors co to life.
Holy shit. That was actually brilliant.
The shadow creatures hesitated while clearly confused by the sudden multiplication of light sources. They darted toward one illusion only to retreat when it burned them, then tried another and suffered the sa fate. Their movents beca erratic and uncoordinated as our luminous doubles circled them like predators surrounding wounded prey.
"Keep it steady," Skylar said with her voice tight from concentration and a thin sheen of sweat forming on her forehead. "More fire. I need more light to work with."
I increased the output and turned the fla into a continuous stream that painted the underground chamber in shades of gold and amber. Skylar’s smoke wove through it and created a vortex of light and illusion that spiraled outward while filling the subway platform. The illusions began to move independently with each one seemingly real and each one a perfect trap for our shadowy enemies.
To make this work properly we had to stay close. Back to back with my fire becoming her power source and her illusions becoming my shield. We moved as a single unit with four arms and two Aspects perfectly synchronized in a way I’d never experienced before.
This communion of power. This joint creation that was more than what either of us could do alone.
Her back pressed against mine as we rotated while tracking the movents of the shadow creatures. I could feel the curve of her body through her combat gear and the heat radiating through her clothes. Her hair whipped across my face as she ducked under a shadow’s lunge, and it carried the scent of cherry blossoms mixed with sothing darker. Clove cigarettes maybe, or expensive incense. The contrast was oddly fitting for soone like her.
This was insane. Her control was incredible since she wasn’t just making copies. She was weaving an intricate web of light and lies while using my power as the thread. Each illusion moved independently and confused the shadow creatures while drawing their attacks away from our real bodies. The shadows would lunge at what they thought was
only to find their claws passing through a phantom that burned them with concentrated light.
When the shadows attacked an illusion the light burned them and caused them to shriek in silent agony before retreating. Their forms would temporarily disintegrate like smoke caught in a strong wind before regrouping with diminished mass. Slowly and thodically we carved a path forward toward the tunnel where the subway car presumably waited with our objective.
"Not bad, Stray Dog," she said with her voice close to my ear as we moved forward in our deadly dance. Her breath was warm against my skin and created a stark contrast to the cold air around us. "You follow directions better than I expected. Most n with your ego would be too stubborn to let a girl take the lead."
"I’m full of surprises," I replied while adjusting the angle of my fla as she created a new pattern of illusions. Our movents had fallen into a rhythm that was almost like a dance where we anticipated each other’s steps before they happened. "You’re not so bad yourself, Bubblegum. For a spoiled rich girl playing at being Hunter."
"Call
that again and I’ll feed you to the shadows." Despite her words there was almost a hint of amusent in her voice. "These simulation deaths are quite painful, I hear. Seventy percent pain reception ans you’d feel most of it."
"Noted. I’ll save it for special occasions then."
"Special occasions like what?"
"When I’m feeling particularly suicidal."
She actually laughed at that, a short sharp sound that was more genuine than anything I’d heard from her before. "At least you’re honest about your death wish."
We reached a junction in the tunnel and paused to catch our breath. The shadows seed to be regrouping while gathering in the darkness just beyond the reach of our light. They pooled together and rged into larger more nacing forms that pulsed with malevolent intent.
We took cover behind a wrecked ticket booth with both of us breathing hard from the exertion of maintaining our Aspects continuously. The tal counter was cold against my palms and years of rust flaked off onto my skin. We were still close with our shoulders touching as we crouched in the confined space. Her scent was stronger here in this small pocket of relative safety.
Now seed as good a ti as any to ask the question that had been bugging
since the day we t.
"Okay, Bubblegum." I ignored her glare that could have lted steel at close range. "What’s the deal? At the entrance exam you looked at
like I was interesting. Ever since then you’ve looked at
like I’m sothing you scraped off your boot. What changed?"
She was silent for a mont with her expression unreadable in the dim light. Then surprisingly she took off her headphones, which were just a costic item in the simulation anyway. Without them she looked younger and more vulnerable sohow. The tough punk rock exterior softened just enough to reveal a glimpse of the person beneath all that carefully constructed apathy.
"At the exam," she began while her voice lacked its usual sardonic edge, "you were a mystery. A zero with a hidden power. An anomaly in a sea of predictable diocrity." She finally looked at
with her purple eyes sharp and honest in a way I hadn’t seen before. "That was interesting. Like finding a knife in a drawer full of spoons."
She twisted one of her knives in her hands, a nervous gesture that was completely at odds with her usual composure. The blade caught the flickering light and sent brief reflections dancing across her face.
"Then I saw you at the draft. The way you looked at Natalia. The way Emi looks at you. The way Soomin flinches when you’re near." Her eyes narrowed while becoming cold and calculating once more. "I saw the ga you were playing. The web you were weaving thread by sticky thread."
I felt sothing cold settle in my stomach that had nothing to do with the shadow creatures’ touch. It was the ice of recognition, of being truly seen. This girl with her bored expression and her combat knives had looked straight through my carefully constructed masks like they were made of tissue paper.
Shit. She’d actually figured
out.
"I grew up around n like you, Satori," she continued while her voice stayed flat but carried an undercurrent of sothing raw.
"My father’s a rock star. I’ve spent my whole life watching charismatic predators collect and discard people. Girls who thought they were special. Boys who thought they were friends. All of them just stepping stones in soone else’s ga." Her lip curled slightly and revealed perfect white teeth.
"And you? You were just another one of them. The interesting anomaly was just another cliché. The mysterious bad boy with a dark secret."
I didn’t deny it because I couldn’t. She had seen the truth or at least enough of it to make an educated guess. She was more perceptive than I had given her credit for, this tiny goth girl with her smoke and mirrors. Maybe that’s why her Aspect suited her so perfectly since she was accustod to seeing through illusions.
"And is that what you see now?"
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