Judy was so close to victory that she could taste it.
There was a certain pleasure in succeeding when everyone said she would fail that she wouldn't deny. Why would she? At her lowest moments, when she had been weakest, that stubborn desire to prove the naysayers wrong had been what got her to go on. Judy could admit that to herself; part of being strong meant knowing where she was weak. And now, at long last, she had the opportunity to excise that weakness entirely.
The rabbit she grasped in one paw was like a grotesque mockery, all of her failings magnified and exaggerated and given a terrible life. She was soft. Weak. Every reason why other mammals said a rabbit couldn't join the City Guard made flesh. She was overly trusting (especially of the hated fox) and emotional and lacked any kind of strength. Even now, all her reflection could do was tremble in fear, eyes wide with panic and shining with tears. She wasn't even fighting Judy, which made it all the worse. Judy would have fought to her dying breath to free herself, but the feeble rabbit wasn't even futilely trying to break her grasp. It was a favor Judy was doing, really.
And yet...
Judy tried pressing the thought down, but couldn't help it. She was absolutely sure she was doing the right thing; of the two of them she was certainly the one who deserved life. Of the two of them, she was unquestionably the stronger. The braver. Judy knew she was better by any possible metric, and in that she was certainly unwavering. And yet there was a certain hollowness to her victory.
Judy couldn't quite name what the feeling was, but it was almost as though something was missing. She had felt it, ever since she had come to in a maelstrom of memories, surrounded on all sides by an infinite void that seemed to want to press in. Judy hadn't been afraid, of course—she hadn't felt so much as a twinge of alarm ever since awakening—but there was still something off. She had brushed it aside at first, as she had begun to explore her bizarre surroundings. Or at least, as she had explored them as much as she could while they shifted and split around her, never seeming to be the same thing twice.
At one moment she had been trudging across the glassy wasteland that separated the Middle Baronies from the Outer Baronies, enormous craters dotting the ruined landscape. The next she had been wandering the hallways of the academy, so utterly abandoned of cadets that the echo of her footsteps sounded as though it would never end. No matter where she was, though, that oppressive void seemed to be slowly reaching its way in. Above the wastelands it had hung like a malevolent sky, a black so perfect that it seemed to be sucking the very colors from the land. In the academy it had leered in through the windows, and Judy could have sworn that it was somehow pressing up against the glass.
And then she had found the rabbit.
Judy had thought, at first, that she looked like her twin, but her subsequent experiences had proved that not to be the case. Her reflection had seemed asleep, and Judy had stridden up to her, as fearless as ever. Some part of her had even been glad to find someone else, and Judy had shaken the rabbit until her eyes opened.
It had been a bit uncanny, seeing something that she had of course never seen before—what she looked like as she woke. It had familiar and yet utterly alien at the same time, watching those purple eyes she knew well from seeing them in mirrors blearily blink and then look about, an equally familiar mouth making sleepy little noises. And then the rabbit had locked eyes with Judy and everything went wrong.
The rabbit had screamed, so loudly and so close that it hurt, and as she had recoiled, clapping her paws over her ringing ears, the rabbit had bolted upright and fled. Judy had followed almost at once, but the as she did the landscape stopped shifting and locked itself into what she recognized as her family home. That had been odd. Odder still, though, was that no matter how quickly she ran after the obviously terrified rabbit, she couldn't get any closer. At last her quarry had thrown herself into a room—her old bedroom, as a matter of fact—and slammed the door shut behind her.
And the door had seemed as immovable as though it had been a wall.
Judy had tried pulling at it with all her strength, and as she did it seemed as though she only got stronger. Taller, too; it was impossible not to notice that the doorknob seemed to get lower and lower, as though she had grown at least three feet or the building had shrunken. Judy had given the door one final kick of frustration before moving on.
She had vaguely hoped that the scenery would rearrange itself, as it had before, but it seemed obdurately determined to remain the old family home. Judy had never despised it, of course, but she had never really belonged. The academy was her real home, where she had proven herself up to the rigors of her chosen job. Judy had shown them all, no matter how much other cadets had excluded her and even some of the professors had given her less than a fair shake.
And yet...
No matter how much she imagined those familiar corridors and rooms, nothing changed. The conclusion she reached, as absurd as it seemed to imagine, was that the other rabbit—that helpless, frightened, weak little thing—was somehow in control. It made absolutely no sense, but the more Judy thought on it, as she wandered the corridors and peered in the rooms of the old seat of Totchli Barony, the less any of it made sense.
Reality, as far as she knew, wasn't prone to warp and twist without any warning. There had to be some reason she had found herself where she had, and yet an answer refused to come. The more she thought on it, the more obvious it was that there were gaps in her memories. Large ones at that, where it seemed as though everything was just a hazy blur. Was the other rabbit feeling the same thing? Judy had felt something peculiar at the thought; not a feeling but an absence of one. It felt as though there should have been something to accompany her musings, some kind of feeling about the weaker rabbit.
But all she had felt was idle curiosity.
As Judy had continued her search for anything of use, it had felt as though things had started slowly making sense. The strength she felt wasn't just physical; it was mental, too. She felt more confident than she had ever felt in her life, and her usual doubts had left her. It had been liberating, and with it she realized exactly what the other rabbit must have been: nothing less than all of her weaknesses separated from her.
Memories had started coming back, as she kept wandering, and although some of them had hurt—remembering what the fox had done to her had been accompanied by agonizing pain as her arm withered and yet grew no weaker—she had welcomed each one as making her stronger and stronger. And, although she didn't seem capable of controlling the environment she was in, what it actually was occurred to her in a sudden flash.
She was lost within her own mind, and there could be no doubt that the fox was responsible. Judy's hatred for him felt stronger than ever, but also purer than ever. There were no quibbles or caveats. There was no uncertainty in her feelings for him, just loathing so clean and absolute it was almost intoxicating.
More than that, though, was the realization that he had defiled her mind. There was a fragment of him running around, and to Judy it was like a maddening itch. She would have to eliminate both versions of the fox, the one who didn't have a body and the one who did. And, while she was at it, put the weaker version of herself out of her misery.
There was again that almost joyful sense of rightness to her thoughts. It was as though she was one of the heroines from an old story, the kind who always knew exactly what to do no matter how tricky or skilled their opponent was. Judy knew she would win, and her confidence felt as pure as everything else, unaffected by any doubts.
Or at least, it had started off like that.
As Judy had planned on how to catch her prey, the answer had come to her nearly at once. What she needed was a room with only one way in or out, a room where she could easily hide from view. The kitchen had been the obvious choice; her parents had dithered about remodeling it for years without ever managing to actually go ahead and perform the work. Judy had crept into it, hiding herself away, and waited.
She even seemed more patient than usual, free of her weakness; Judy wasn't sure how long she waited but she had plenty of time to think. And once again, that sense of something missing had crept back into her thoughts. She told herself she was doing the right thing, as she had always tried to do. That had been her entire life, really; Judy had always tried to do the right thing no matter how difficult it had been. It was why she had wanted to join the City Guard in the first place; Judy wanted to help other mammals.
But suddenly that didn't seem so important.
The idea of helping others had filled her with a sort of warmth in the past. Now, though, there was nothing. Why did it matter what other mammals did or what they felt? The rule of law mattered, not feelings. And Judy was obeying her orders perfectly; she would destroy the shadow of himself the fox had planted in her head, wake up, and then capture or kill the real one. Purging herself of a lesser version of herself was an unexpected bonus, but it was really the fox's fault that she had the opportunity.
That thought had made things feel absolutely right again, and Judy had waited with no further unease for the weakling and the fox to stumble into her trap. To her delight, it had worked even better than she thought it would. The fear her failings felt for her only made Judy faster and stronger; if the lesser Judy could control the environment then it would also her undoing. The stoves had flared dramatically to life, and the door had sealed itself, the bunny's terror making it absolutely immovable.
From there, it had been a simple matter to draw her sword and cut through one of the walls to the void beyond, the weapon made impossibly sharp because the weakling was so afraid. The weakling had dared claim that Judy needed her, but she was utterly wrong, of course. And now she had them both in her grasp. At last, all that separated her from utter victory, from banishing the worst parts of herself entirely, was to pitch the trash into the abyss.
There was pleasure in it, certainly, but not nearly as much as there was at the thought of being utterly rid of the meddlesome fox. His copy, at least, was trying to fight even as Judy walked ever closer to the slash she had made, ready to throw him first. It was almost admirable, in a way, that even a pale imitation of him refused to give up. It almost made him a worthy opponent.
Almost.
But he was helpless against her grasp, no matter how he scrabbled at her paw; she could barely feel his claws. But then, as Judy prepared herself to throw him into the void, he did something completely unexpected. He twisted his neck to look behind him at his impending demise and then lifted his legs, placing his feet on either side of the gash Judy had made in the castle wall. It was futile, of course; Judy had no doubt that she was strong enough to break every bone in his body (assuming that in the representation of her mind he had bones to break), and she prepared herself to push hard. The fox reached out with one paw, stretching until he managed to catch the weakling's. With his other paw, he reached forward, grim determination taking over his face, and wrapped it around Judy's arm.
And then he unraveled.
Judy had never seen anything like it; his body seemed to come utterly apart. It wasn't gory or messy, the way it would have been if a mammal had been disemboweled, but rather as clean as a pulling a thread on a rug. He had become nothing more than a mess of threads, orange and brown and white and the mocking green of his eyes, and they tightened around Judy's arm. She cried out in surprise, but couldn't pull free; her arm had become bound to that of the weaker Judy by a mass of colored strands so fine they appeared completely flat.
She's right, you know. You do need each other.
The fox's voice was suddenly in her head, but there was something beyond his usual mocking tone to it. He sounded almost sad, and Judy roared her defiance. "No I don't!" she cried, swinging her other arm, the one that still held the weakling tightly, toward the void.
If she lost a paw destroying her flaws, so be it; Judy knew she had to be free of them and the fox if she had any hope of waking up and succeeding at her mission.
Afraid I can't let you do that, Carrots.
His voice came again, louder this time, and echoing in her mind, and the strings binding her arm to the bunny grew as tight and inflexible as steel.
Cerdo's command broke when your mind did, you know. I see that now.
The hated fox was still talking, and the colored lines that had once been his body started glowing as they shifted, spreading up her arm even as she struggled to break his grasp. Dazzling patterns started forming, the connection between her and the lesser Judy growing ever more elaborate.
So that means the only reason you're still on this kick is your stubborn pride. You can let it go.
His voice was only getting louder and louder, blotting everything else out. "I won't!" Judy cried, "You can't make me! I'm stronger than you, fox!"
The fox's laughter filled her head, loud and mocking. The Judy I know is, yeah. But you're only half of her. It's time to put the two of you back together.
The threads binding her to her copy grew tighter and tighter, drawing them closer and closer together even as alchemical patterns formed and twisted across their arms. Judy cried out wordlessly, but she couldn't hear herself over him as his words went into her mind again.
I know you don't care about this now, but you will. And you ought to know it's not your fault I'm going.
The bindings connecting her to the other rabbit had drawn together so much that their arms were touching now, the lines on either arm coming together into a single complicated and beautiful alchemical array. The glowing lines grew brighter and brighter, and the fox's voice in her head spoke for the last time.
Judy, I... You know what? I'll let him say it when you wake up.