It had taken a while for Ender to adjust to life in this new place.

But, of course, the peace wouldn't last. That would just be far too convenient.

He made it approximately two days before he found a note on the door of the building he had been assigned.

It read:

"Hey there, b1g her¤.

N1ce j¤b rμnn1ng away and leav1ng every¤ne t¤ d1e. Real brave ¤f y¤μ.

Meet me at the lake at dμsk. 1t's t1me t¤ f1n1sh what 1 started.

-S"

Of course, he had no choice but to play along.

Dusk came, and the hero eventually found his way to the lake.

Sonake, the influencer that he is, managed to convince one of his "friends" to freeze the entire lake for at least a few inches, just to have a solid clearing in which to hold a battle.

But of course, that wasn't really Sonake. We're aware of this by now.

Not-Sonake obviously didn't really expect him to show up, not because he was a coward, but because he was new, and probably didn't know where the lake was.

He'd be impressed, if he wasn't currently possessed.

Up on a nearby building, a girl sat singing a haunting melody. He didn't know her all that well, but he knew at least two things about her.

One, she was basically the resident medic of this entire operation.

And two, she was hopelessly in love with him.

On some level, he was sad about that, because he already had a relationship going. But something was stopping him from really caring about either of them. A thick sludge, dense and heavy, constricting his brain in all but the most vital of ways.

But back to the battle.

It was time to duel.

The entire battle lasted but a single minute. It felt like longer.

It started with Ender rushing up towards Sonake, blue sparks flying as his purple blade clashed against his opponent's dark red broadsword. Pushing apart, they both slid backwards on the ice. Ender lost his balance for a second, but quickly dug the metal heels of his boots into the ice to regain stability.

Reaching into his pocket, he felt the orb. It was glowing hotter than the Crystals, yet somehow not burning his hand. Simply holding it in his hand, he felt a change in his power.

He swung his blade in front of him and...

[BLACKPULSE]

The ice underneath his feet cracked and broke, not shattering entirely, as Sonake was flung by an unseen force into the side of the metal shed sitting by the side of the lake. It dented under the impact.

Far away, in a castle made of darkness, the king recoiled.

Of course, he was expecting the boy to have access to some kind of magic, otherwise he'd be no threat to his plans.

But for him to have the same aspect as himself... this was far worse than he had thought.

With a snarl of rage, he released a bolt of dark energy towards the battlefield.

Twenty seconds in. Ender used the new terrain on the ice to his advantage, launching himself blade-first towards a dazed Sonake.

But right as he was about to make contact, Sonake rolled out of the way, swinging his own blade at Ender's head (when did he pick it back up?)

Ender ducked, using the back wall to his advantage and landing a kick directly to Sonake's ribcage. He flew backwards, sliding across the ice, before regaining his footing by stabbing his blade downwards.

Somehow, this resulted in a massive wave of water, which froze in seconds, turning into what was essentially a miniature glacier. It had one side which was sloped skyward, and the other was a flat wall, with a couple of visibly confused fish trapped inside. The girl had stopped singing.

But back to the battle.

Thirty seconds. Sonake flew over the crest of the wave, performing a perfect backflip before kicking off of thin air into a reverse spinning slash. Ender barely had time to deflect the impact, but it blew his sword from his hand. He grasped the orb again, and a rush of power overtook him.

Forty seconds. His blade flew back into his hand, right as his opponent went for a stab to the gut. He dodged to the side, seemingly effortlessly. But he wasn't expecting a counterattack, which knocked him flying across the lake. But with a final surge of power, Ender triggered something primal.

Fifty seconds. Ender dropped his own sword, in favour of picking up a block of ice to bludgeon Sonake with. In a single swing, his opponent's sword was knocked from his grasp, with the opponent himself now trapped against the temporary glacier.

Fifty-five. Grabbing his opponent's sword, he lunged, plunging the blood-red blade deep into his opponent's spine, out through his heart, and then further into the ice. He pushed it up to the hilt.

But as he did that, he suddenly became aware of a more pressing concern.

His own sword was now protruding from his chest, which was bleeding heavily.

In the trees, a girl hidden from all eyes watched with horror, as her best friend was taken from her a second time.

Her hand began to burn with searing pain, glowing the strange magenta shade of her blood along the lines of a scar from long ago.

In a motion that was completely imperceptible, she pulled out her dagger, rushed the girl, and decapitated her. She hadn't even blinked, and the hidden girl was back in the trees before even the wind blew the girl's head rolling along the ice.

…is what she wanted to have done at the time.

In reality, she was paralysed by blinding pain, unable to perform any sort of vengeful manoeuver. She wasn't going anywhere just yet.

At the one minute mark, several things happened at once.

First, Ender officially "died".

Second, the girl snapped out of whatever trance she seemed to have been in, looking at her purple-stained hands with first confusion, then realisation, and finally horror.

Third, a mark on Ender's hand began glowing that same unearthly purple, but with tinges of violent red.

And fourth, a ball of black energy hurtled out of the sky, colliding with Ender's barely-undead body (which, let me remind you, was still blocking Sonake's), causing a massive explosion of dark energy.

Fifth thing that happened was that a guy over somewhere else dropped a sandwich on the floor. He mourned his own loss that day. But that's neither here nor there.

Back to this ball of dark energy, it blew both the girl and the dead killer clear of the lake, with the girl smacking into a tree with the hiding girl in it (causing her to fall), and the corpse of Sonake smashing clear through the metal shed. If he wasn't dead before, he certainly was now.

Inside the ball, something bizarre was occurring. The original intention of the big evil guy's attack was to revive Sonake as a shadow creature. However, the attack hit Ender instead, and right as he was in the process of crossing the boundary between life and death. This, combined with the scar on his hand binding his life back into his body, caused a natural property reversal, with catastrophic effects.

Said effects being, in no particular order: Ender's shadow being ripped from his body and forced into its own, similar vessel; Ender psyche morphing into two entities, with the duplicate vanishing into… somewhere; and finally Ender himself being completely revitalised, before being promptly knocked unconscious by the sheer amount of stress being put on his body during that entire process.

His now-separated shadow hovered for a second, looking at his former host, before soaring off into the sky in a ball of black fire.

Ender woke with a splitting headache. Everyone around was either unconscious or dead (or invisible, but that's not the point). This seemed to be the perfect time to make his escape.

He took one last look at his killer, the same girl who had helped him recover from near-fatal injuries. He would miss her, at least a little bit.

He shook his head, and ran into the forest beyond, unaware that he was being followed.

The funeral was the next day.

Sonake's body was buried. No coffin, as there were none on hand. So they simply lowered his body into the earth, and left it there.

And, far away, someone else was playing a funeral march for a poor, poor sandwich.

He'll be back.

Ender ran through the forest. There was nothing in it but trees and more trees, their leaves slashing at his face like blades, as he ran at speeds faster than any human could ever dare to dream to.

He had been running for an hour, fuelled only by adrenaline and regret.

He blinked, once, and immediately tripped over a rock. His immense speed caused him to go flying, crashing through several trees before coming to rest at the foot of a mountain. His final thought before falling unconscious a second time was "I really need to start looking where I'm going."

And then he was gone.

And that right there is... another chapter. Yep. It's a thing now.

I've been rewatching a whole bunch of old reaction compilations, and also playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate far too much to get anything done. So I've been putting this off for a while, yeah.

But, regardless, I got this out. Hooray!

Oh yeah, the story's over on AO3 now too. So that's also a thing.

Anyway, that's enough rambin'!

Ender OUT!