Loke did not want to charge into the battle. He wanted to gather back up before we engaged Brain and whoever he had gathered to support him. I found myself arguing against it. Inside an anti-eavesdropping ward because there was a Wind Magic user and I had learned my lesson from Wendy. Wind and air meant that someone could listen in on you from absurd distances. We also moved out of line of sight
"If we give him more time, he will work with Rilt and erase everything about himself, making it that much harder to track him. Only me and Archive users who downloaded his record will even be able to remember that he exists, let alone that he is wanted and why."
I had seen how a phantom threat impacted someone and had no desire to let this situation devolve into the same thing. Brain would not get a chance to slither into the shadows and stalk me or anyone.
"This has to end and it cannot wait. Not even for back up."
"I get that, but it would be a safer bet. It took Natsu and Jellal to take him out last time."
I felt a vindictive flash of pleasure as Loke raised this concern.
"He won't be able to repeat that performance. I cut out his alter-ego from being able to communicate with him. He doesn't get a bonus second wind this time." I spun the arrow that had borne the damning message in my hand thoughtfully. "He seems to know that too, since he's brought some back up. The magic on this thing isn't Brain's."
There was the intent to convey a message, to carry information to me, so if I focused, and caught the currents of the wind, I could detect more than just the intended story. I sensed about four people had been in the proximity when it had been fired. Closing my eyes to tune out other distractions and focusing just on what this thing was telling me. One was the Wind Wizard, the other Brain. The third had an aura I couldn't readily identify until I shifted spectrums on a hunch and identified it as another Celestial Spirit. And there was also a fourth aura, though very very weak. A non-hostile?
Yes.
I groaned.
"Oh fantastic. They've got a hostage."
Ohdran Requim was thankfully unconscious. But he was there and Brain would use whatever he could to force us on the back foot. We would either need to come in so hard that they didn't have time to use that edge or find a way to protect him.
"Three, one of them being Brain. A Wind Wizard and another spirit. Lion Brilliance can take out any long range effects, and keep me from taking direct attacks but it would leave you as the only viable target."
Lion Brilliance wasn't just Loke tapping into his stars and emitting light to blind opponents, while not affecting allies. It also generated a field of energy around him that deflected attacks on his person. It was an incredibly powerful, potent buff.
"We can deal with that. It's the other spirit that concerns me. Could it be another Hunter?"
"Not likely. One of their own almost died because of what we're working on. They would not risk another of their clan so soon after that they will be on high alert and putting emergency hold on all existing contracts." The Lion Zodiac Spirit crossed his arms, finger tapping his elbow as he contemplated the situation.
"The Clans that are based on humans are the ones that are more likely. There are two other clans who I think would be more likely. The Sailor and the Champion."
Judging by the names, these clans were probably equated to Perseus and Hercules much like the Hunter was equated to Orion.
Perseus was a renowned name, legendary in many aspects. But a lot of his victories were won by wit. Not as much as Odysseus, that was more or less his thing, but he was a clever and personable sort. He won through a combination of charming people into giving him aid to supplement his strength. Versatile and dangerous but not superhuman.
That's not something Brain would value. He always had to be the smart one. Someone else being a thinker and strategist would damage his own value. And he doesn't want something good at close combat. He wants something great, something lethal and overpowering because that's how he sees himself as an intellectual.
Which meant that the most likely candidate for an accompanying Silver Spirit was one based off of Hercules. There were a number of positive portrayals of him. And he was renowned as having massive strength above what an ordinary person could have. But the original tales described him as his father's son, the son of the King of the Gods, and not in a good way. Which likely meant he would be incredibly strong physically and skilled in combat.
Probably strong enough that Lion Brilliance would not be enough to protect Loke. And while he was here under his own power, there was the very real chance of Loke burning through enough power to put his life at risk. And by the radiant gleam in his eye, I knew Loke would push to that limit and beyond rather than leave me to fight alone. He could tolerate needing to be rotated out due to damage taken with Lucy because she had half a dozen other spirits he trusted to protect her. Right now, it was just the two of us.
Most likely what the set up will be is the Wind Mage will be in a blind of sorts to keep him at long range. Brain will keep up Area of Effect spells and keep us contained while the Champion heads into melee.
Which left me to assess who would have Ohdran. Though that was a fairly easy conclusion. Brain wouldn't trust anyone but himself with this task. The last time he had let someone else watch his hostage was Eric and Kinana guarding me 7 years back. And Eric had been the one to ultimately betray him by hiding the fact that part of me was not subject to the programming I had undergone in early childhood to force my compliance. I had only realized it later, but Eric had defied the closest thing he had to a father figure when he lied to Brain in that instance.
With something like that in the past, he wouldn't have anyone else watching his prisoner but himself. He would have his hostage close by, easy to threaten. And as Zero was out of the picture, and his instability and bloodlust, that made the chances of him simply killing Ohdran negligible until he had time to talk. Showcase how smart he was.
He would be focused on that. Getting the chance to preen and strut, showing he was still dangerous and capable even without Zero helping him.
It's a spectacle. This was set up to target me.
"We go soft at first, the priority is getting Ohdran out of the way. But if we're spotted, we'll need to switch to a sudden rush that doesn't give them time to leverage that they have a hostage." I told Loke running a mental tally of my available totems. Harry Dresden's skillset would serve me well in this situation, so I wouldn't switch out of it. "Brain is an expert in Darkness Magic, so he will like be able to work up a counter to your Regulus Flare and Lion Brilliance. We won't have long."
"We'll make it work." Loke clasped my hand, which I only now noticed was shaking slightly. The care I felt from the gesture was matched by an additional flush of Celestial energy that filled me.
"Loke, I'm nowhere near running on empty. Save your strength "
Hazel eyes that were glowing faintly gold looked down at me from over his tinted lenses.
"I need you to live through this, Princess. And you are more at risk than I am."
I felt a flicker of fondness mixed with annoyance.
"And you have to live too."
His hand rose to my shoulder.
"I've been around for longer than the continents, Fae. Time and people have passed me by in greater numbers that can be expressed in this language. And I accepted that ache. " He began somberly. The emotion I could feel emitting from him was distinct from any other kind of affection I had been around before. Or...not precisely.
"Fairy Tail made the prospect of time passing truly cause me pain. But that was nothing compared to dozing off for a few minutes, and opening my eyes to see I'd missed the rest of your childhood. I'm not ready to contemplate missing out on the rest of your life as well."
From the contact we had, his hand on my shoulder, I could feel the depth of what he was talking about. The sense of loss was a hollow pain of something missing that could never be recovered or replaced. An immortal truly connecting with what being mortal meant. The joy and grief that came with the experience.
And there was something else too. Something firmly tied and focused on me. An affection that was mine and mine alone.
The available ship alerts were silent so it wasn't romantic. I could tell it was love, a deep fervent love that could outlast the sun itself. But it was something that I had never fully been aware of or encountered before. Something I would love to poke at, but we did have something important to do.
We'll have to introspect on that later.
Morgana agreed, though she was still hunkered down and uneasy about interacting with our surroundings. I would equate it to someone without shoes huddling on a chair after a lot of glass had been shattered on the ground around them. With rotting seaweed and spiders covering the ground.
Gana, what is wrong?
I am afraid.
Of what?
Revealing that information would be detrimental to your function.
I wanted to push and question. But Morgana had guarded my subconscious for years, and she had a good sense of what would be too difficult and what was ultimately necessary.
But she had also never been this irrationally terrified.
Would it hurt me more later if it took me by surprise?
No. But it would hurt me to have you see it.
"Fae?"
Loke had noticed my lack of attention.
"I'm alright, but something is bothering Morgana."
And she rarely ever said something was bothering her, and I wanted so badly to be considerate of what she was showing me.
If we need to address it now, we should do so.
I will not allow my fear to interfere with my purpose of protecting you.
Morgana said firmly, walls and shadows enveloping her space in my mind.
I have been exploited once before by Brain and it resulted in your enslavement within your own body. I will not allow him any power over you ever again.
It felt strange and wrong to have Morgana be so far distant inside our mindspace. But she was determined and I knew my own skills.
You won't be able to help direct anything, will you?
Not actively. I will be preventing our passive abilities from damaging your focus.
I accepted that.
"Let's get moving." I told the Lion Zodiac firmly. "Brain's patient, but if he thinks Ohdran has no further value, he will kill him. And he's the link we need to catch his uncle."
-VvV-
Loke had known Fae for years. Had an inkling even when he met her as a child that she would grow to be nothing short of awe-inspiring. Now, walking towards a trap with a counter strategy in place, he had to adjust his worldview anyway.
Before they left the now lifeless house, Fae had gripped the star shaped pendant around her neck. Eyes scanning the air for something he couldn't see.
"Just gotta find...there you are. Aparturum." The unfamiliar arcane word was accompanied by her moving one hand as though she were pulling up an invisible zipper. And following her hand, the world opened before her, a distinct portal in the fabric of reality itself.
"We'll need Lion Brilliance as soon as we step through." She cautioned him, hooking her fingers into the edges of the slender slit in the air and spreading it wide as though she were just parting some curtains. She freed up one hand and held it slightly out from her side, poised for action.
This wasn't the space mortal Portal or Teleportation mages used to traverse distance. This was the dark mirror of reality. The plane everyone, living or dead touched.
And something dark and hungry lunged at them the moment they stepped through the small portal. Fae's readied arm came up and amber magic flashed into existence, creating a spherical barrier around them that they ricocheted off of throwing sparks. Startled, but ready, Loke opened access to the stars in his constellation. A fierce radiance blazed out of the shield that made dozens of grasping hands recoil with a sizzle.
An arachnophobe's worst nightmare loomed over them. There was nothing natural about this creature, but the closest thing he could think to call it was a monstrous spider. It was hard to pin down its actual size as it shifted from as large as a horse to the size of a building. It had a bulging dark body and more legs than should be possible. And somehow every leg was tipped by a ravenous mouth of serrated teeth. It dripped blackness everywhere, but it couldn't penetrate Lion Brilliance. Despite being reminiscent of a spider, the thing didn't seem to have eyes or a discernible head. It just clung to dark, ink-covered webs and sent futile jabs their way.
"Is that it?"
"Yeah, that's the Silence."
Fae affirmed, arm up and projecting her shield out of a bracelet of interlocking medallions on her left wrist. Loke spotted a sliver of color in the black creature that was being pulled into the center mass, and a single small leg that was growing from where it had vanished.
"What's that in it?"
"Mostly likely Dora."
Her tone sounded bitter as she admitted it.
"I imagine that having this thing swallow most of her memory of the last 15 years, and keep her trapped in her grief doesn't allow for a strong spirit. As soon as she was outside of her body, she would have been easy prey."
And this isn't even the real monster we have to fight.
This thing was born from envy and had thrived on secrecy and pain for years. Loke would have liked little else than to sear it to nothingness. But there would always be more monsters to fight. More evils to tear down. He had brought down more than could be counted in his millenia of life. And knew there would always be more.
"We'll be back for it." He wasn't sure if it was Fae he was promising this to, or himself. He wasn't sure if it mattered either.
"I know. We'd better get going."
She carefully closed the portal behind them, zipping the world back together without leaving a mark, the shield still enclosing both of them, providing them protection and a bit of light. Loke then utilized Lion Brilliance, letting it fill their small bubble and radiate beyond it as well. The ground was more like what he would see in the Celestial Realm rather than the mortal world. As though it was there for their benefit rather than always existing.
He followed Fae carefully as she led him towards their destination. The star shaped pendant hung from her hand, and seemed to be pulling her towards their destination.
"I did not know that mortals could access this plane."
"Technically, we shouldn't be able to since it doesn't exist in Earthland. Or isn't supposed to." She paused at one place and carefully sidestepped an innocent looking root on the mist covered ground, giving it a considerable berth. "For a world without common knowledge of magic, the Nevernever is the conceptual dumping ground for everything that doesn't fit into the general, crowdsourced idea of reality. Including the various afterlifes of the religions of their world. In Earthland, that knowledge is not suppressed. Most supernatural creatures can live on the same plane because it can sustain and support them. What would be the Nevernever in another world partially dissolves into the fabric of our reality. With only a distinct barrier between the living and the dead. I'm using my totems to separate out a small path for us right now that doesn't take us through Death's territory."
She said this so simply, but Loke could see lines of tension in her neck from exerting her will on the world around them. As though she wasn't flirting on the edge of one of the Laws that could bring her some painful consequences.
He kept back the rather pointless question he wanted to ask: was this safe? He rather doubted that it was with how carefully Fae avoided some places on the strange, twisting path. And the pendant she held by its chain swung around erratically, and Fae always turned resolutely to follow it. If he was using a regular sense of direction, then he was pretty sure they were going in the opposite direction of where they needed to be.
But there was also a particular feeling in the air...
"How does this place interact with Time?"
"If they were in a relationship, their media status would permanently be set on 'it's complicated.'" She admitted, turning a few degrees to the left for two steps before resuming her advance. "The journey can take as much real-time as several months, or seconds. Even if you had the same destination, taking a different route impacts how long you spend traveling. We need to take a few steps back here." He laid a hand on her shoulder and let her guide them through several careful backwards steps.
"And all of this is actually going to be compressed into a few real time seconds?"
"It will seem as though we teleported into where we were going if I do this right." She affirmed. "If I could make it more energy efficient over long distances, it would be the quickest way to travel, no question. Since I have to push to make this space for us, unlike just hopping to another plane that exists independently, that might not happen for a long time yet."
Loke digested this...
And there was only one reason why Fae would be so invested in being able to traverse long distances, or travel to other planes. He made his tone quiet and gentle.
"You made this set of totems to try and find Edolas again."
To try and find Mystogan again.
She gave him a tight smile. The smile when she hadn't gotten a satisfactory result.
"And Tenrou. I found Fairy Sphere with it. Or the general area it was in. I haven't found the trick to accessing Edolas."
Loke knew her choice of words was deliberate. And the fact that she said that she hadn't found it, instead of hadn't found it 'yet' likely meant that she had given up the hope of making it with these totems. So it hadn't panned out as she hoped.
He squeezed her shoulder gently in understanding.
Fae would not give up until she had all of her family again. And one of them that happened to be very important to her was still MIA.
Nostalgia made him think back to a passionate child who had refused to allow him to give up and fade from her life. Eyes glaring up at him. Angry, but also terrified of losing another friend and willing to challenge a god, or near enough, to keep him. And those eyes were now turned to a new focus.
"You'll get him back, Fae."
Her mouth thinned and she took a small inhale, eyes on the ground as she chose their route with infinite care. Her hand gripped his, laid on her shoulder. Then her mouth twitched and a spark of life came back into her.
"Why is it that these deep, serious conversations always seem to crop up when someone is about to die?"
"Humans habitually live in denial."
The quick reply did earn a wider grin from her. She paused then, eyes going distant as she parsed her senses of the small dimension that they stood in.
"We're here."
Since there was some sort of Wind Mage with a bow and absurdly long range, our moves to secure Ohdran had to be swift and precise and not allow for very much time for him to react, otherwise he could easily shoot him. And without Morgana to tell me if that was something he would be inclined to do, we had to run with some assumptions.
Stepping out into the open air, we were greeted by the wet close feeling of an approaching storm. We were standing with our backs against a wall of what had once been a small house. It looked like the roof had fallen in years ago. There were a number of other remains of buildings. None of them were very large. Dominantly built with wood and what looked like pitch. Doors hung ajar, shingles were missing from all the roofs. And the smell...I'd been near the ocean before, but this smell resonated within me on a primal level.
Why is this place so familiar?
I didn't focus on that feeling, I reached for my magic through the pentacle pendant in my hand and whispered.
"Ventas Servitas."
It was loosely translated to 'wind servant' but not exactly. Dresden-verse spells meant sacrificing the use of specific word associations in your head. One couldn't just say a spell without it taking effect, so it was pretty popular to bastardize languages and customize them for your personal use. Harry Dresden relied on a mix of faux Latin and a bit of Spanish to create his repertoire.
And in this sense, I was holding the wind in such a way that it would keep moving around us and not betray our sudden presence to the Wind Mage.
Morgana's silence in the thought space I expected her to be was unsettling and I did not like it.
But there was no sudden hail of arrows. Or no roar of a charging opponent. I had been working in cooperation with Morgana, letting her sort through all the information as we traversed our tiny portion of the Nevernever to end up exactly where we wanted to be.
Now we were on our own.
Loke was on my left and slipped into an easy crouch, stalking to the edge of our cover to peek around it. Then just as silently, he stole back to me, leaning down to whisper to me.
"The Silver Spirit is out beyond the main wall in the open. There is someone in the corner of the two walls."
That meant we had no idea where the Wind Mage was. Just that he could most likely see everything that was going on.
"This is a trap."
"Oh yeah."
What else needed to be said after that? We were acknowledging a fact, but we had a game plan. So it was time to enact it. I met Loke's eyes and gave a curt nod. He returned the gesture, but leaned in holding my face for a second and placed a kiss on my forehead. Morgana woke up from that, with a surge of answering affection to the gesture.
Love, pride, worry, certainly, resolution, Protection from Lion's Brilliance.
Only a touch would have been needed to make me safe from the spell he was about to unleash. But I could tell that the gesture had been a very deliberate choice on his part. Morgana clung to those feelings like a lifeline. Or a security blanket, wrapping them around herself.
Then Loke rolled out from behind the house and the dark gloom of the night evaporated as searing light radiated from him in all directions. And while he was putting a lighthouse to shame, there was a thud of a direct hit of fists on flesh as he pounced on the Silver Spirit Brain had utilized as his muscle.
I reached out and unzipped the air again, chanting my phrase to access the Nevernever. I didn't have to even step in properly before I opened another portal on the other side, groaning internally from the strain of keeping the two doorways and the wind spell active at the same time. It was much harder to do without Morgana stepping in to fill the gaps.
Three spells at once might be my limit for right now.
There was a limp, motionless form slumped against a wall and another figure with a hand raised to shield his eyes. Thanks to Loke's light only providing me clear illumination and not blinding me, I recognized the first form as Ohdran, and the second one as Brain.
My circle flared to life as I bore down on the wind spell to lift and carry Ohdran through the two portals, traversing the smallest distance possible. As soon as he settled on the other side, I stepped through myself. My spellbook spat my favorite sword into my hand and I went for the strike.
The blade bounced off of a wall of blooming, dark violet Darkness magic as Brain turned towards me, still blinking through reflexive tears from Loke's personal flashbang field.
He must have detected my portals.
I let the two portals die and the realities of the world were aligned again, relieving a tremendous burden on me.
"Faerun-"
I didn't wait for him to get more words out. He was paler than I had last seen him after years of incarceration. His white hair was straight and orderly again instead of the chaos that it manifested whenever Zero was in command. The first thing I noticed seeing him in person again was that he was so much smaller now than when I was a child. I was still shorter than he was, don't get me wrong. But he seemed a lot less than he was in my memory. And his face was bare of the Seal of Six Prayers.
Not that he could get more than maybe one or two, even if he did still need them.
The Oracion Seis was well and truly busted as a Dark Guild. I didn't think any of the former members would have any interest in Brain other than Macbeth on account of their familial connection as father and son.
I took all of this in as I did my best to cut his leg off with a backhanded strike, but the real ploy was my other hand, still grasping the pendant to reach out and push my will in another direction.
"Forzare!"
My foot pushed off the ground, channeling collected kinetic energy to launch me overhead and bring my sword down from directly above. It was a move curiously similar to Helm Splitter from Legend of Zelda, but I had deliberately drawn on the story often enough over the years to incorporate some of the techniques permanently into my own repertoire. And there was enough energy from my movement that I even channeled some of it into the edge, to slice right through his shielding.
Brain's eyes widened as I bounced over him and he barely ducked out of the way, putting his back into the corner. I could see Loke grappling with a burly man wearing some kind of animal skin as a cloak. There was a faint snarl to be heard from my Golden Spirit friend. I landed on my feet and side-stepped a Dark Capriccio launched from his hand in a short burst of vivid green light. Brain still couldn't see that well thanks to Lion Brilliance.
Another push and hiss of 'Forzare' and I launched myself to slam Brain through the remains of the wall with a kick to his center mass. (Perpendicular to where Ohdran was currently stashed so he was not going to be in the line of fire for much debris.) I spun my pendant foci on it's chain into a small circle, invoking my next spell. I figured that I should take advantage of Brain's lack of clear vision to set myself up for further combat.
So I called the blasting rod into my hand, letting my pentacle dangle from its loop of chain around my wrist. I called up a nugget of the fiery anger I had felt when I first heard his voice and realized Brain was involved in this whole debacle. I advanced on him steadily, my rod held steady.
"Pyrofuego."
The stream of fire that emerged tugged at my energy levels, coming to life easily, but still hard to see in the light Loke was emitting. Brain broke it up with a flurry of Dark Delete, and one of his sleeves caught fire. Small dark orbs that fired out and rapidly expanded in the thick of the fire to break it apart and scatter the heat away from him. Surrounding him with intense but bearable heat. He sent a few more shots of Dark Delete at me. So I channeled power into my shield bracelet and batted them away if they were going to hit too close. A few of them I trusted my coat to handle, it was heavily enchanted with all kinds of defensive magic, including wards against Darkness Magic specifically.
I couldn't really hear over the roaring in my ears, and I was focused on the sight of Brain, who appeared to be caught badly off guard. His hands moved, and violet magic coalesced around his hands in a way I had seen before. He was using Dark Gravity. And I had an answer to that.
I slashed my sword through the air, hissing.
"Gravitas."
Large area of effect spells, especially ones that impacted gravity, were by necessity spread fairly thin. And knowing Kagura and having been caught in several gravity traps, I knew that intimately. So as Brain cast his net of increased, immobilizing gravity over me, my spell enhanced sword sliced right through it with my spell countering Brain's.
Ok, now that I've got a lot of heat spread around, I need a little bit of unequal heat distribution.
"Infriga."
Memories of Gray's ice shooting up out of the ground filled my mind as the spiky ridge of ice shot for Brain. A physical attack that he had to dodge since it couldn't be easily deflected. He moved to the left and started trying to circle around Loke's fight.
If he's trying move that way, he must be going there for a reason.
I took a second to glance the direction he was going and say a large building with a tall spire and another figure climbing down the side of the wall. Even at that distance, I saw the longbow on his back. So I assumed it was the Wind Mage that had killed Dora.
I'll deal with you later. Or...maybe right now.
Most Wind Mages specialized in either using their limbs, or tools to generate movement in the wind, or using their breath. Wendy was unique in that she could do both with equal proficiency. So it was pretty likely that with his hands occupied, that Wind Mage would not be as able to defend himself from Wind Attacks.
And then there was what I personally thought made Harry Dresden so proficient at using wind magic even early on in his story.
I sent my will out into the air, touching on the heat and absence of heat in the ice I had created. And I took that difference and made them clash without mixing, generating the high and low pressure difference to spark up wind. And once there was some movement, I directed it and made it even bigger.
"Ventas Cyclis."
The wind began to spin in tight circles from two amber Magic Circles on the ground on either side of me, sucking up splintered, rotten wood, loose stones, dirt, ice and anything that was on either side of me. By tapping the energy I had sent out into the air with my previous spells, I could up my own efficiency and not spend as much on this next spell. One of them fired their ample ammunition at Brain, and the other at the Wind Mage. There was a flicker in the light of Lion's Brilliance that left the area pitch dark, and I heard Loke make a sound that was unmistakably of pain.
Loke...!
Morgana quivered, reaching out quickly to download what had happened to our partner.
The Champion Silver Spirit had gotten Loke's arm behind him and was hauling on it to try and break it. Loke got his fingers up to fire a close range Regulas Flare to make him let go. The animal skin he was wearing was somehow enchanted to absorb the Celestial Magic. Lion Brilliance came back with a vengeance then. Morgana ducked back into hiding from whatever was frightening her so badly. But that brief flare of insight was enough to assure me that Loke had this.
There was a hiss in the air and I moved one of my whirlwinds to block three arrows that were coming at me now. The figure who had been on the side of what looked like a church steeple had gotten off a few shots while he could. Brain wasn't fighting me right now though, he was...running?
Where are you taking me?
It could be that Brain was leading me into a trap of some sort where he had set up something else. He had the advantage of time, he would have prepared things to fall in his favor if at all possible. So I mentally cycled through the potential word combinations and spells I had devised to alter writing or affect the ground. I dissolved one of my whirlwinds to act as a shield against the Wind Mage's arrows and kept the other intact, using it to hurl various improvised missiles after Brain. Who was running into another ruined building. This one even smaller than the remains that they had hunkered down in initially. There weren't any standing walls, just a single, low broken down wall that Brain leapt over and began to chant.
They were words I didn't recognize. And without Morgana to tell me what they meant, I could only assume that I wanted to stop what he was up to.
But another flurry of arrows was coming at me. The Wind Mage must be close enough now that he could rely on senses other than sight to fire. But the arrows were still deflected around me-
As they hit the ground, violet magic flared into life and my advance was stopped as I ran into a clear lavender wall.
Brain gave him enchanted arrows.
I struck the barrier with the pommel of my sword, and it didn't even vibrate or seem to react. Morgana, though she was not reading out surroundings, seized the direct contact with the imprisoning spell.
Boreas's Grasp
I was familiar with the spell. And the story. Boreas, the Greek god of the northern wind. The spell was referring to his abduction of an Athenian princess, and the futility of her situation in escaping or defying a god. It was very strong and very specific and there was a touch of Darkness Magic in it to drive who was held in it to despair. And to not struggle against imprisonment.
Fortunately, defying gods was something Harry Dresden had plenty of experience with.
With a tug on my vision to use Wizards Sight, I could see the threads of the spell. I ran my two fingers along the edge of my sword, amber runes forming on the flat of the blade. To the outside observer, it would probably look very impressive, holding a sword that had a faint orange light dancing on its edges and runic script down the center.
Someone, who was very nearly a god in terms of age and power, had told Harry Dresden: 'Bow down Mortal.' And that just wasn't the Mad Wizard's style. His retort was now emblazoned on my sword as a temporary counter enchantment, and would probably have gotten some strange looks if there was anyone around who could read my script and I said them aloud, not caring if Brain could hear me or not as I brought my sword down on the barrier blade first.
"Bite me, asshole."
The woven magical curtain of energy was sliced apart and I started to advance again, activating my shield bracelet to deflect any further missiles from the wind mage. (I distantly wished that Morgana could give me a name so I had a better way to address him in my head.) I checked my reserves, and they still felt like I still had more than half of the total magic power I typically had.
His plan was shaken. His muscle is occupied, his long range asset is handicapped, he has lost his hostage and his fortified position.
Now I needed his brain, pun intended, to betray him. So I needed to apply a little psychological pressure now to prevent him from getting his footing back and force him to retreat to his contingency more quickly than he planned. Haste meant sloppiness, sloppiness meant mistakes. And mistakes were excellent, when your enemies were the ones making them.
So I reached for a subtle enchantment I had woven into this totem. The fact that Harry Dresden was terrifying to his enemies. And Brain had lost what he prized the most to me. His knowledge. It stood to reason that there was a tiny bit of fear that he felt towards me.
"Sometimes you get what's coming around." My words carried audibly over the air. Lightning split the sky, and didn't seem to do anything else thanks to Loke's still burning radiant form behind me. "And sometimes you are what's coming around."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The air was cool and wet with oncoming rain.
I could have planned that better if I had tried.
The suggestion of fear wrapped around Brain and I saw him go pale as he tried to send another Dark Capriccio my way. I deflected it on my shield.
Brain was retreating into the borders of a ruined house. I couldn't take my eyes off of Brain, or the archer as I was keeping my protective whirlwind between myself and getting turned into a pincushion. But I could still see lines etched into the ground.
Brain had turned this place into a ritual site.
I knew Morgana was keeping herself tightly pulled in, and I really wanted to have her check what this ritual was for. And whether it would be disrupted by a sudden surge of power, or if it would be powered up by it.
Brain stopped retreating and a barrier sprang up around him as violet magic coursed through the lines. I skipped back from getting caught in it. Another two arrows snapped into my whirlwind and sent large sections of the magic peeling off the side.
He used Wind magic as a cutting tool and broke it down.
My shield would be much less effective against the archer now. I was ok with using various elements. I was not a master. Another arrow sliced through my whirlwind, targeting it rather than me, and another section of winds was taken out from under my control. Brain was chanting, but without Morgana to help me catch what he was saying over the rising wind, I was in the dark about what he was doing.
One arrow made it through my weakened defenses and impacted like a bullet. My reinforced coat stopped the worst of it but there would be an impressive bruise after this was over and I almost dropped my blasting rod.
I saw a hint of misty blue power curling around the Archer's bow. I saw five different points hovering on his bowstring.
I dropped my blasting rod, pushing all my focus into my pentacle tied around my wrist.
I had an enemy casting a ritual which needed disruption, a space I didn't want to enter for fear of stepping into a trap, and real physical objects that were going to be coming my way quickly at high speed. My coat would act as reasonable armor, but I would be looking at multiple broken bones if those arrows found their mark. I did not want those things to hit me.
"Vento refluttum!"
I grabbed my whirlwind with both hands, and spun it faster and stronger into a tight shield around me. But instead of just deflecting the missiles, I wanted to redirect them. I stepped with the whirlwind, feeling all of the arrows impact my defenses and their velocity was yanked out of alignment. I came out of my spin and sent all five arrows flying at Brain.
Two of them shattered against the barrier protecting him. The third broke it with a sharp cracking sound. The last two took Brain in the chest and he was thrown down from the impact. Loke's Lion Brilliance was enough for me to see the faint traces of blood.
As soon as Brain collapsed, the ritual circle flared. It grew larger than I expected it to, ensnaring me in its boundaries. I made an aborted motion to leap back, but the world fell out from under me as something snatched my consciousness away from reality.
The mind did all sorts of things to explain sensation, memory and the rush of neurons firing. Made pictures, triggered senses and bodily responses. So I could still see clearly, hear, and feel even though I knew distinctly that my body was unconscious.
Behind me was a tall wall of pale stone extending up to a low dour sky. There was a large chasm between where I stood, and the doors of the fortress. It would have been pretty under different circumstances. All made of clean pale stone, with impossible feats of architecture extending high above what any but a bird could reach. Curls and arches. But no windows anywhere. Not even one.
The gloomy sky made it look wan and cold. I could see the freshly broken ruins of a bridge that was collapsed into the moat. And beyond it, the gate was barred shut. Every access I could see looking in either direction was the same. Looking away from the siege ready castle, the land around it seemed to fill itself in as I looked around. As though it didn't exist until there was someone to look at it. But even that didn't look much better. Trees stood like black streaks against the landscape and the patterns on the ground showed there had once been grass and shrubbery around.
Someone or something had burned it. The castle behind me was either ready for an attack, or had already fought off an attack.
"I really hoped my mind was a prettier place than this."
I remarked with a sigh, turning out towards the horizon and searching for an enemy. In this instance, I could connect what had most likely happened.
Brain had set up a ritual. But rather than bring activated by words and power, it had been keyed to accept a sacrifice of sufficient power as the final piece to activate. And had been primed to expand out once it was activated to ensnare nearby targets.
"This isn't your mind." The man responsible for this whole debacle walked across the plains in front of the wall with impossibly long strides. He seemed to arrive before me in a matter of seconds. "This all is a construct G20 created, meant to deter and confuse invaders."
He nodded at the wall behind me, eyes sparkling with greed.
"That is your mind. The innermost part where everything she has witnessed and taken in is recorded and held at the ready for perfect recall and execution."
That made sense, though it went against my every instinct to accept any information from him.
"Which is something that you want."
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Apparently most internal dialogue here was actual.
He grinned, and there was a ghost of Zero the madman in his eyes.
"It is only right that you serve your purpose to benefit me."
My lip curled at the intruder.
"I'm not something that has only one purpose let alone one for you to quantify. And Morgana has chosen her own. She is free from you, you can't control her again."
I had nothing in my hands as a weapon. Casting a spell wouldn't do anything here. It was mental fortitude against mental fortitude. Whoever could outlast the other would win here.
Brain stood tall and regal in here. In elegant robes, cream and navy blue. Dignified and ornate. He didn't look like someone who had been running. Or someone who was bothered by the fact that-
"You are dead." I could remember the image in detail. The placement of the arrows that had hit Brain made survival highly unlikely and if he was in here, in my mind... "Or close enough that it doesn't matter."
"My body is. But that era of my life is behind me. It is time for a new chapter."
Dark roots surged out from Brain's feet and shot for the wall, worming through the ground. And corresponding pain rocked through me. In my normal state, it would have been localized to my head. But right now it was like nails were being driven into every part of my body.
I pushed back against the invasion. Amber blades flashed out from me and sliced the dark roots off, leaving the ground untouched. And this close and personal, I didn't need Morgana to interpret what that attempt was.
"You're attempting Human Takeover?"
I was not surprised that Brain knew the technique, but that he would take such a risk in using it.
More dark roots surged up from him, and again, my mental defenses sheared them down to nothing but I could already tell that my response was just a fraction of a second slower than the first instance. This wasn't my domain. It was Morgana's. She had made all of this, I was just visiting and trying to defend her. My home field advantage was impaired.
"You want to possess my body."
The thought was repulsive to me. To have Brain here on the borders of my consciousness was already too much. But to have him in charge? Piloting the body while I could only watch? I would always have the chance to fight, but it would be easier to get detached and apathetic towards life once I could no longer interact with it. And Brain would do anything to encourage my lack of fighting and had proven means to break someone.
"With everything that you have cost me, it is just recompense that I have what you do."
And he actually believed that. In this space, I doubted either one of us could lie. Takeover was a match of convictions, the body and the invading mind. And Brain had made his clear.
More darkness, this time a slow, certain march. Confident and secure in his stance.
"All you have ever done is take. From me. From your guild. Even from the one person you love, you only know how to take. What I did wasn't even close to everything you are owed for what you have caused."
Mentioning Macbeth made a portion of the advancing Takeover evaporate. Brain's face ripped into a grimace of anger. No filter, just a flash of murderous rage, then back to the determination. Currents of amber light flowed around me, wind carrying words and conviction to scatter his latest assault.
"He didn't even reply to any of my letters!" He came at me with anger. I returned fire with facts, things I concretely knew.
"The Dreamcatchers I made for him only started working once I had them filter out any mention of you. Macbeth's subconscious mind doesn't assign anything good to you. And your absence from his life gives him peace."
"And your presence gives him comfort." Violet grasping veins snatched at my magic, pinning and swallowing part of it before I could dissipate the rest safely. "I talked to him. Before Rilt got me out, I gave Macbeth the chance to walk free with me. Just the two of us. And do you know what he said?"
"Some form of rejection considering he wasn't present when I kicked you through a wall. Which really is too bad, I think he would have found it cathartic."
Thorns of darkness shot at me. Amber flowers swirled open to catch and deflect the thorns, losing some petals to the attack but remaining intact.
"He chose a life as a caged animal over me, his own blood. His father! He chose you." Another expression of murderous rage, more lasting. "I made that boy everything he was. I made you everything that you are!"
This assault was easily deflected again, stone-like barrage of Brain's will being hurled at me and the wall behind me. I answered with an amber net, which caught everything and flung it back away from us into the indistinct landscape.
"We've been here before. Anything that I am or that I have accomplished. I did in spite of your influence. Not thanks to your guidance."
This was rehashing old turf. Things he knew he couldn't shake me on.
Where is your ace in the hole, Brain? You wouldn't have concocted something as risky as human takeover with no safety net if you didn't have at least one.
I didn't like how blind I was to this. We had been trading punches for a while, he would be winding up to unleash his killing blow. The thing that would unsettle me so much that he would have his chance to Takeover my body. Morgana having gone into lock down would force me to react to him once he unveiled it. There was no anticipating this next curveball, I just had to play it and hope I had enough mental fortitude to see this through.
"Is that so? You were quick to resort to fatal methods. I expected to have to wait for Archer to kick start the ritual. I'm almost proud of you."
He wanted to take credit for my being willing to kill to defend myself? No. He was twisting that, associating it with his lack of morals and willingness to kill those who inconvenienced him.
"Well I left you alive last time, and look how that turned out." Arrows of my will sharpened around me, flaring around me in a macabre flower of deadly intent. "I learned long before you from someone much, much better than you what it means to take a life."
This one's for you Erza.
I fixed the memory of what I wanted in my mind, resolve as cold and hard as tempered steel.
"And you are teaching me, I suppose, that for some people, one chance at mercy is all they should get."
Then I let my volley or arcane bolts fly in a graceful, lethal imitation of Erza's Heaven Wheel: Scattered Petals.
Amber clashed with violet, throwing sparks and crackling as my attack pushed through Brain's hurried barrier and scattered scorch marks across his manifestation. There was a split second flash of fear as my assault came at him. His defenses flashed into being around the vital areas I had targeted. His throat, heart, kidneys and head. I summoned a new wave of resolve and started to reform and spin my arrows in the defenses like drills before he could smother them. Opening wider gaps for the next blow, and bleeding him of his strength.
"How is it that the one survivor of my project became a renowned scholar in the span of a few years?"
He was grasping at straws and sounded like he had had the wind knocked out of him. His pristine appearance was fading to show a feverish look of pure desperation.
"A random child from a nameless coastal village, yet there was enough raw potential to birth a prodigal rune master. The odds of that happening by chance is astronomically small. Impossible without outside guidance."
"Never tell me the odds!"
I cracked a smile, bright sparklers of my own amusement at being able to throw a quote at him exploding into being and driving Brain to take a step back.
"It doesn't matter how improbable my history is. That the chips fell in just the right way to bring us to this moment. The fact is that I am here."
The amber sparks settled on the ground, rising in a steady wall of flames flickering on either side of me. Brain had lost ground and the sputtering bits of his will were wavering. I advanced the wall forward, intent on burning Brain out of my mind space as thoroughly as I possibly could. And though there was no apparent fuel, the fire advanced and grew stronger. He took steps back to avoid the flames, which had swiping feline paws, serpentine coils, flashes of snapping teeth and thorny thistles clawing their way along the ground and ripping out any shread of Brain's presence that they found.
Brain's smile was nothing short of menacing. His nice robes were scorched in some places, his healthy look was getting more haggard the further he got from his objective and the safety of a body. The penalty of a failed Takeover was harsh enough. But all that awaited him if he failed this spell were a few minutes of agonizing consciousness and then death.
"You are here. Yet your little helper is not. Too many bad memories for her to handle?"
Morgana? Why bring her up? He wanted to divide me from Morgana?
But here, in this space, I couldn't hide or deflect. Or not as well as I could in the waking world.
"She's withdrawn to protect me from being distracted."
I didn't say what, but even this admission felt like an opening.
Here it comes.
"I suppose learning one's name for the first time in your life would do that."
This is it.
It was beyond me how...but Brain had happened on the same trick I had used to beat him out. To give the conditioning the slip. Identity. He had found my name. Who I had been at the very, very beginning before my first capture.
There cannot be a worse person to hear this from.
"The names we chose mean more than those we have no connection to."
It was a flimsy defense, however true it might be. A tidal wave of blackness was rising behind Brain as he prepared to douse my fire wall and my free will along with it. A deep identity, untouched by time or attention. I could hear cracks behind me as Morgana tried to curb her desire to know and failed. I stoked my resolve higher and higher to try and match Brain's assault.
"If that were even remotely true, then she would be out here aiding you, not leaving your consciousness to be devoured." He bared his teeth, eyes lit up with his anticipated triumph.
"Mind and body, submit to my will. Give place for my soul. Takeover!"
And then darkness crashed down on me.
And the oily, dark coldness that was Brain's consciousness was now everywhere. It was all I could feel. Familiar pathways led me to flashes of insight as we tussled wordlessly with one another for control in a battle I had never fought before.
Morgana had never sought control of the body. This was her space,and not mine. So I was not as strong here as I was in reality. Brain was used to psychic warfare due to his tumultuous relationship with Zero. All Brain had to do was push me into this mind space, then overwhelm me and he could complete the Takeover. He could assume my entire identity.
So it came down to his skill against my desperation. Because there were people in my life I would sooner die than let him touch.
All the bright and talented people he heard of in passing from the guards and then on an obsessive deep dive once Rilt freed him. (The man's agent, Archer, had literally walked into prison and walked him out with no one being the wiser. I saw glimpses of that as Brain plotted how to replicate the curse deliberately and them remodeling Rilt from the equation as a potential threat.)
He could take my connections, my life's work as it stood right now. The years of trust and rapport. The standing in society with the power he craved.
He had only heard rumors about my life while he was jailed. But after he had been freed, with all the knowledge of the world at his fingertips he had spent hours pouring over my accomplishments. Opening Iceberg to magic users. Books published and journals written on many subjects. The reputation for ruthlessly hunting down those that wronged me or mine. The honor and prestige that he craved, and was willing to reshape the world to get.
In a twisted way, he saw me as his in much the same way he did Macbeth. A child made in his own image. Who had all the success he was denied, who had actively stopped him from achieving his goals. The fury he felt, the betrayal, was deep and raw, kept alive with years of resentment.
Once he took over my life, and in his mind, everything would be balanced again.
The name that was thrown at Morgana's defenses was distorted. Wrong. The syllables sounded the same, but her dim, treasured memories made it sound completely different. Because she remembered it last being spoken by her family. Which no matter how he viewed things, Brain would never be.
"Dorathea."
Mixed in it were the flashes of his conclusion that this was a family name. But I was too busy trying to not get pulled under, swimming through his black heart to find some source of light.
But it was Brain. There was no light to be found in him.
My sanctuary had been breached by the nightmare whose memory forced me here in the first place. I could barely feel Fae's light anymore, buried in the invaders' greedy grasping hands as he tried to sniff her out.
I lurched off my safe perch and raced for the 'viewing screen'. My safe point of access to the outside world. The floors were a pale, varnished wood today with a faint mosaic showcased in the subtle variations of colors. The walls were bare and shiny. The doors to the library, the sum total of my knowledge and experience that I managed for Fae were sealed tightly behind me.
"Fae?"
The window to the outside was covered in blackness. But there was still a dim flash of response from her. The defiant soul that had been born when I couldn't muster the will to live. Even now she was still fighting. I pressed against the screen.
"Fae! Fae! Please don't give up! He cannot win! We cannot go back!"
G20 was gone. Fae had helped me rewrite my story away from that hollow shell of a life. Morgana was firmly in place.
We cannot go back. It would...it would ruin everything if we had to go back.
But Dorathea-
"Come on Dora! You can do it!"
Outstretched hands. The feeling of worn smooth wood under my feet. No clear face, but the sound of a smile beckoning me onward.
The screen cracked and I flinched away, another three layers of distance rising between me and my worst nightmare. And between me and Fae.
"Mom, look Dora walked to me!"
Spidery orange lightning shot through Brain's invading force. My other half was fighting with everything she had. It wasn't just me she was protecting but everyone that Brain could use and abuse with our face and identity.
Even as a half a soul hiding in seclusion within a mind, I could still feel cold.
Identity.
Dorothea didn't have that. It had been stolen by cruel men and replaced by G20 before she could really develop. I had chosen not to have an identity for a long time. Just existing as a quiet spectator within a world that showed fantastic things as being real and even commonplace.
Magic.
Family.
Happiness.
I had watched with near apathy. And had only realized the change that was wrought in me. The power of witnessing a story that closely. I was growing invested, eager to turn the next page. I felt pain at the hardships the main character I had surrendered my life's story to. I wanted her to be happy. To have and keep all of the things that had seemed impossible for me. But 'things' didn't want. They couldn't want something. That was something only actual living beings could do.
So when I knew her heart would be the most broken, I spoke for the first time. Not as part of her subconscious, or as the voice of her power, but as someone distinct. I claimed the name Morgana, for the ironic twist that Fae and I were together.
'Morgana le Fey', a sorceress from the legend of King Arthur. It was the name I had contemplated in the quiet nights after Fae started pushing me to have a voice seperate from her in our partnership. The play on words amused me. A private joke that hardly anyone else would ever hear, let alone understand.
Fae was the one who spoke with the world. She was the face, the wit, the charm, the courage to face life's challenges. I was the thought, the knowledge and the observer. And our partnership worked as one of mutual support and understanding of one another.
I took another step towards the viewing screen. I would not leave Fae alone as she fought for us. Fought for the life that should have been mine.
The whispers of half formed memories of Dorathea's life stabbed at me as Story Magic tried to delve into the matter, root out the answer to the question that had never really died. But all the current information was held by Brain. If it weren't for the resonance I felt when he first uttered the name, I would doubt his truthfulness even now.
And if it weren't for the glimpses that I had been experiencing since Loke landed us in this part of Fiore. Dorathea's birthplace. This burned out, empty village forgotten by the world. Forgotten by me until Fae and I first touched down.
The amber light of my other half battling for our freedom shifted from jagged lightning to ethereal swirls of mist. The movement was identical to the deadly poison gas Kinana would use on her enemies when she preferred a lighter touch rather than simply envenomating them with a bite. Brain was slow to adapt to her new method, but he did adapt. An older, more experienced mind. And one driven by desperation.
I laid my hand down on the control panel with dozens of characters, letters, switches and dials. The way I had distanced myself from life to try and protect myself. A smaller screen to the left of my viewing screen showed in writings form the words Fae had had running through her mind. If I didn't share a mind with her, it would have been too fast for me to keep up.
Fae had assembled part of the conclusion of why this was happening. Brain felt entitled to her body, knowledge and life. He felt he was owed the results of a lifetime of labor.
He had lost the Oracion Seis to Fae's kindness. Richard and Soriano were reconnected with their true family and more able to shake off Brain's influence. Sawyer had overcome his need to run away while having ample time to contemplate in prison and be treated by a professional for his traumatic capture as a child. Macbeth slept peacefully through the night, freed from the memories of his torment by Fae's efforts in creating and keeping him supplied with Dreamcatchers. The less said about Eric the better. He had been the first of Brain's hand picked and hand raised team to betray him for her.
Years of time cultivating his elite guild. Of gathering knowledge. The latter was yanked away in a single moment of poetic justice when Fae channeled vengeful, furious forces to cut at what Brain valued most. The former was whittled away slowly over time. Until he had nothing and no one left.
The presence of amber amid the choking miasma outside was bright with strength. The will to fight was the first thing I had dreamed of for her. To do what I couldn't bear to.
She'll fight until there is nothing left.
The hypocrisy of the situation made more cracks appear in my viewing screen.
I had declared my name and purpose to be to protect Fae, my soul-sister who fearlessly took on the life I found overwhelming. But right now, I was the one cowering in fear, flinching whenever a stray emotion made it's way through the walls of organized knowledge and logic. And she was burning through everything she had, alone to try and spare my feelings. To acknowledge me as my own person. If she had just asked for help, I could- Possibly have forced my way out and aided her, but she didn't. She wouldn't.
Fae saw me as a person. And she would treat me as one and respect my wishes.
The tremulous memory of naesua rose in my throat, along with a black loathing for myself.
I can't do this. I can't call myself her guardian if I leave her alone now.
I took another step towards the screen, then another. Forcing myself to keep pressing forward even as the cracks grew larger and a faint, purple mist started to creep into my pristine sanctuary.
Banishing my knowledge to a secure space took less than the blink of an eye.
The theories that Fae and I contemplated were not for Brain to pursue. Horcrux's, Rings of Power, the raising of a lich, Balefire. The things we knew of that somewhere, in some imagination, could defy the Laws of Death and Time. Once that was all secure, I looked down at my hands.
I didn't normally like to look at myself.
I looked like the same skinny child that Natsu brought to the guild hall all those years ago. Short green hair, hollow blue eyes that looked at everyone warily, a crude bandage around her head.
I interacted with the world through Fae. She had grown, and I hadn't. And for a lot of time, I was fine with that. Fighting with Fae's unintentional self curse had made me gain some maturity, but I still looked more like I was 10 rather than 16.
My reflection looked back at me in the viewing glass, cracked and distorted. Brain's voice taunted me again.
"Let me in, Dorathea."
I lifted shaking hands and placed them on the viewing screen.
"Fine."
The screen shattered like glass and melted like spun sugar, Brain was surging into the room.
And as soon as he entered it, his advance slowed to a crawl.
I did not live according to the world. Time did not impact me the same way it did someone who directly interacted with it. It was almost comical to see the man's finger tips emerging slowly, lazily from the blackness he was using to obscure himself.
I reached my arm into that soupy mess, grimacing at the sticky, vile sensation and found who I was looking for. I pulled Fae free from his entanglement and into the room beside me. Gripping her hand in mine.
I was not brave.
I had made a whole new personality to face the world because I didn't want to, and couldn't conceive ever wanting to.
But for her, and everything she had let me experience...I could be anything.
I had seen my doppelganger before in Edolas. So it didn't weird me out that much to see my own face looking back at me after she pulled me out of Brain's ugly mind.
"Gana? But you-"
I felt her grip tighten on me, protective and determined.
"He's in our head, Fae. And you proved he doesn't have power over us years ago."
Morgana's face jumped between a toddler, a child and a teen, all with my face. And there was an echo of something else behind her that my mind wasn't quite ready to perceive. She felt like she was standing on a great precipice. She had made a decision.
I squeezed her hand in answer.
"Are you sure? You'll feel so much more. It will be so much scarier and closer."
"We haven't let Brain win in years. Now isn't the time to start."
I grimaced
"This is more than just facing him, Gana. This means you feel what I feel. You experience what I do. Everything down to the smallest sniffle. I know..." I steeled myself against the harsh truth.
"You made me because you didn't want life."
My encounter with Silver, and him mistaking me for a demon had forced me to confront the truth. That in another time or place, I would have been suppressed with medication and deemed an illness. A defense mechanism that everyone would be trying to encourage to fade and reintegrate. That in some way, everyone I knew and loved was attached to a lie.
Morgana's features were evening out, gaining distinction as we stood and watched Brain come closer, millimeter by millimeter. He was slowed now, but the barrier was broken. He would enter. There was no stopping that now.
She nodded slightly, brow furrowed.
"Yes. I saw no hope in life. No goodness in it. But you have made a good life. And good does not mean constantly happy. Your griefs have already been mine, as are your triumphs. It is past time for me to accept that I cannot hide from the world forever. Not when I have found cause to love it."
Her other hand gripped mine then and we stood, facing each other. A silent partnership actually seeing one another face to face.
"Fairy Tail saved us both. But you saved me first, Fae. The only reason we have anything to lose is because of you."
And the unbridled, pure affection that she had been working up to expressing washed over me, cleansing the greed and taint contact with Brain's Takeover had left on me.
I was fairly certain that there were tears running down my face. I wouldn't be surprised if I came back to myself to find my cheeks were wet. But this felt like a celebration. A victory that could not be surpassed.
Morgana loved herself. Or maybe I loved myself? The lines were hard to define sometimes. She was grateful and cognizant of an accomplishment no one would ever be fully aware of. That the people who had intended her as a tool, a means to an end without feelings or her own identity, had lost the last bit of their power over her. She was no longer afraid of what might happen if she trusted. If she lived.
I pulled her in and hugged her. She leaned into the embrace, wholeheartedly accepting and returning the affection, the support of the gesture.
And a quiet, endless moment passed.
Then the moment was gone and the pause became awkward as I looked back at Brain, who was still advancing albeit very, very slowly.
"So are we in any hurry at all right now?"
"No." Morgana replied simply. "He bade Dorathea to let him in. So I did. And now I, Morgana, can evict him."
There was a flinty determination in her gaze as she stared hard at his hand, and the person we knew was attached to it.
"He's...still formidable."
Even with the handicap of Zero and his extra consciousnesses being largely neutralized, Brain was a slippery old bastard when it came to close psychic combat. He had prepared for this moment. Bet every last scrap of life and luck he had on it working.
"Not in here."
Morgana had spent years living at the speed of thought. Zero had always fought Brain for control, craving being in reality and so had never fully embraced the potential they had as a partnership. Brain might be the more experienced wizard. But Morgana was superior in terms of pure psychic warfare. This was the reality in which she lived and breathed. She took a deep breath, and her appearance stopped shifting and finally settled. She was now a mirror image of myself. Not slipping back into an underfed child, or up to a grown woman with haunted eyes, or a blank featureless non-entity. She was me. Almost. Her hair hung in a straight, orderly curtain as opposed to my curls, which at the moment resembled a rat's nest with the whirlwind of willpower that I had been using to duel Brain. Her eyes had a more aloof, knowing glow to them but they were a slightly more matte color than my eerie glow. Her serene expression didn't last long as she broached the next question, eyes flicking over to the slowed Brain.
"He will die as soon as he is expelled. Is there further knowledge we need from him?"
"Everything he knows about Rilt."
That came quickly and without hesitation. Because as soon as Brain was no longer a threat, there would come the monumental task of unearthing a decade and a half of blatant corruption.
She nodded, pulling me along with her as she reached out and touched Brain's fingers with a twist of distaste to her lips. No more than a second of contact. Amber light formed a HUD before her eyes for a split second. A fancy, completely unrealistic ear piece and a strange glasses like screen formed, and her straight hair was swept up into a long pony tail. She wore a neatly buttoned shirt and slacks and a white lab coat.
"Information secured."
I stepped back and bowed with excessive flourishes and dramatic flare.
"Shall we send this uninvited guest to where he belongs?"
A faint formed on Morgana's lip as she turned towards Brain.
"That seems reasonable." She then paused, hand half raised and glanced at me. "The Wu Xi finger hold, or Tsunade's finger flick?"
I couldn't hold in a brief cackle of satisfaction at the question and gave it all the consideration it was due.
"Wu Xi seems to be thematically appropriate."
Spiritual banishment was more what we were after here rather than physical trauma after all. And if Brain had any idea of how irreverent and light-hearted a story was the cause of his downfall...well, he would never rest in peace. And it never fail to make me smile looking back on this.
"We are of the same mind." She said with an answering twinkle of humor that made me laugh again. I stepped up beside her and waited as Brain slowly, very, very slowly, emerged into reach. His other hand cleared the black ooze he had brought with him as his assualt. And when it was in the open, I watched Morgana reach out and take Brain's finger between her thumb and forefinger, lifting her little finger and waiting. I did the same with his other hand. His eyes focused for a split second, flicking between the two of us in confusion. And as the light of realization filled his eyes, we spoke with a perfect unison, jerking our fingers down to access the silly, but potent ability.
"Skadoosh."
Then golden light filled my senses.
-VvV-