Chapter 7

Chloe stared at the girl in front of her. Her blonde hair, still tied up like it had been at Blackwell, looked the same as ever. That was where the resemblance ended. Unlike the suicidal Kate that they'd dealt with previously, this Kate was unbroken. She had a light in her eyes like Chloe had never seen. Her look was that of someone who felt she had purpose. Chloe knew it all too well. It was a look she herself hadn't seen in the mirror until Max had come back.

There were a lot of other differences, too. Her new wardrobe for a start. She was dressed in a sleek black hoodie and jeans. The hood on the hoodie had a gold edging to it and Chloe realised she'd never seen Kate in anything like that before. She couldn't help but wonder why. Did her mother not approve of them or something? Was she a Karen in more than name? Chloe had no clue. But this Kate was a totally different person to the one she heard all those stories about from Max.

"Yes it's me, Chloe." Kate nodded as she stood up. Even the way she did that told Chloe that something had seriously changed. She held herself so much taller than before that she seemed to somehow tower over Chloe despite the fact she only came up to her shoulders. "You shouldn't have come here. And you definitely shouldn't have brought anyone else. Max is doing all this to protect you and you want to stop her!"

"Kate, she's making a mistake!" Chloe protested. "We know that she's worried. We know she's somehow turned herself into a time bomb, but this isn't the answer! You can't contain something like that outside of the timelines! Look around! Look at what it's doing to the world around us! This glossiness... It's not natural!"

"Enough!" Kate snapped in a manner that was totally out of character for her. That was when she reached into her hoodie and pulled out something that perplexed Chloe to no end. "I'm tasked with protecting her until her time's up. And I need to make sure you get the message not to come back."

"So what are you going to do with a D&D piece?" Chloe asked, breaking out in a smirk? "Do you have powers too? Are you going to make your character materialise and stab me?"

"Nope." They all looked over to see someone else had materialised in the chair. A member of the High Seas from the shirt he was wearing. But over the shirt, he wore a trench coat that was undone at the front. It looked a bit like a pirate coat but more modern. It made Chloe kind of jealous. She wanted one. He had dyed pink hair that reminded her of when she first went fully blue. Jut how well had Max managed to replace her while she was in Seattle? "She's just going to kick your butt."

"Down, Dex." Kate cautioned him. "Max said she was mine."

"I figured you'd need backup." Dex shrugged as he grabbed a trolley from the corner of the room and wheeled it over. Chloe remembered it. It had previously been full of drugs. Drugs that had been used on Rachel. Drugs that had been used on Kate herself Now she was about to try and stop Chloe from getting to Max by playing D&D on the top of it. The whole thing felt so surreal but Chloe was prepared to jump through whatever hoops she had to.

"So what sort of adventure are you planning?" Steph asked curiously. "There's no map or anything."

"No adventure." Kate said, glaring at Chloe with a look she'd never seen before. Was it hatred? "I'm a Christian. I'm not about to pick up a weapon and start gouging at her with it. So this is the only way I can fight. And that's what's going to happen: Chloe and I are going to fight to the death. And when I win, I'm about to make sure that you don't have the morale to ever come back. You'll all head home, voluntarily or otherwise."

"Kate, if we don't stop this then there won't be anything to-" Kate held up a hand, cutting him off. Her trust in Max was clearly absolute. It made total sense. Max had saved her life. She clearly felt she owed Max this and Max had obviously been desperate enough to play on that to get her help.

"Enough!" With that, she slammed her piece down on top of the trolley. Chloe stepped up to meet her head-on as Steph made her way around to the side to make sure there was no cheating. That made Chloe feel better. If Kate tried to pull some weird trick, Steph would be the first to know. She would have trusted the old Kate to play by the rules, but this new one seemed like a total loose cannon.

"Let's make this quick. We're on the clock here. Challenger takes first move." Steph declared. With that, it was on.

"I use Heavenward Kick!" Kate declared as she rolled a 10. Chloe rolled a save and managed to evade before rolling her own attack.

"Let's end this quick! Annihilation Strike!" Unfortunately, she totally messed up the roll and got a 2. Kate rolled to counter and got an 8, dealing a heavy blow to her. Chloe wasn't deterred, fighting on despite the damage. But after a few turns had passed, it became clear that Kate was winning. Fortunately, she had an ace in the hole up her sleeve. Or rather, on her arm.

"It's your turn, Chloe." Steph told her. "You've not got much health left. Do you have any healing items?"

"No, but I have something else." Chloe grinned. "I hold my right arm aloft, my wounded state causing the Legion Band to activate! Spirit Call! Calling out to close friends far away, I call Jinora to the battle in spirit form!" With that, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Max's character piece, setting it next to her own. She grabbed both the dice the rolled them for the attacks.

"I use my shield!" Kate rolled and scored a 20. But it could only protect her from one attack. Now she was on the back foot. Chloe knew she was prepared to take this all the way, but what she didn't expect was what Kate did next.

"I grip my Legion Pendant, my wounded state causing it to activate!" With that, she turned and nodded to Dex. "Spirit Call! I call Nydak to the battle in spirit form!" With that, Dex walked over and placed his character piece on the table. Chloe felt herself go light-headed. Max had betrayed her. She knew Kate wouldn't have fought because of her faith and she knew that Chloe wouldn't have arbitrarily beaten her up. She would have gone along with it purely because Kate was a close friend of Max's. So Max, the only person other than her or Steph who knew about it, had showed Kate the Legion mechanic they'd invented together and equipped her with it so that she had a chance against her. And like an idiot, Chloe had fallen for it. She'd fallen so deep into the trap that there was no way out.

"I use Bloodlust Slash!" Dex rolled the D4 dice and managed to get a 4. But Chloe was still dazed. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't get to grips with the fact that Max had sold her out. Suddenly, some small part of her consciousness registered something had changed. Callamastia was the only piece on her side of the table.

"Hey, you can't do that!" Steph protested. Chloe looked up to see that Jinora was now in Kate's hand as she waved the figurine around casually.

"Look, it's basically over at this point." Kate shrugged. "And you're right, Chloe. Max told us all about Legion. And I have to say, it's a fucking amazing idea. Too bad you won't be able to use it now." With that, she brought her hand swinging down. Chloe heard the snap of plastic as Jinora's figure shattered against the edge of the trolley. She fell to the floor in pieces. For Chloe, the agony was instant. Her last remnant of Max was gone in less than a second. Quickly, she snatched up Callamastia as Dex and Kate retrieved their characters.

"You bitch!"

"Don't hate me, Chloe." Despite everything, Chloe could swear she heard a pleading note lying within her voice. "I'm just a messenger here." As she spoke, they saw Dex make his way back over to the chair and sit down. He vanished fast enough that if Chloe had blinked in that second she would have missed it. Kate went to turn back to the chair as well, but paused before turning back. "Oh yeah, I forgot. I have to send you home, don't I?" With that, she pointed at Chloe and snapped her fingers. "Judgement!" The pain was instant. Chloe didn't know what had happened, but it was like her blood had turned molten in her veins. The scream that escaped her was one she'd never heard before. It was one of pure agonised desperation.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her room. The pain was totally gone. Unfortunately, the glossy effect that clung to everything was still there. She sat up, checking her phone for the time. What she saw perplexed her. It was just coming up for mid day. It had been that time when they'd arrived in the barn. A quick glance out of the window showed that her truck was gone, probably still at the barn. A check of her pockets showed the same hopelessness for Max's D&D character.

"What the hell was that?" Chloe spun in place to see Steph there. She was pale and there was a haunted look in her eyes. Chloe understood. That pain had been something else. Warren was the next one to arrive, followed by Dana, Juliet and Alyssa. Kate had sent them all back to Chloe's house. The barely-visible figure out of the corner of her eye told her The Outsider had either been sent back or made his own way. Whatever she'd done, it must have been a similar power to the one the chair used. How had Max done this?

"Well, we're definitely not getting in that way." Juliet muttered, unable to hide a shiver as she threw herself down on the bed.

"You mean you're thinking of trying again after that?" Alyssa asked disbelievingly. "Whoever those guys were, they made their message clear."

"Yeah, but we didn't make ours heard." Chloe countered, an idea forming in her mind. The encounter hadn't gone as she'd hoped. Actually, it had been a disaster. But her resolve was stronger than ever. She was too much of a stubborn bitch to go down that easily. "I am going to get us in there. It's going to be tough, but I have a plan."

Author's Note: Okay, so as we're all aware, the update schedule for this story has been a mess and I have some explaining to do as to why I missed Friday. Simply put: my laptop officially crapped itself. It had a bad update and when I went to turn it on once I woke up on Friday morning to do the update before I forgot, it wouldn't turn on. I got a boot-up screen then it was just black. Moving the track pad brought the mouse up but with a loading icon that kept glitching in and out. Add that to the fact it was already pretty damaged and you have a real recipe for disaster. I have a new one now, though. I've managed to sign back into my account and I'm just adjusting to the different computer so we're good to go.

As for my update schedule, it will be back on track as of now. This early update is the chapter that you should have got on Friday and I will be posting as normal this Friday to get myself back on track. That's the plan and I aim to stick to it. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. See you on Friday.