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1018 Words
Rushing forward, she brought her sword down in a massive, overhand swing, but her mirror was able to roll out of the way and cut space to dodge the blow, despite Susanne trying to lock the battleground down with her Concept.
Still, she had compounded her few advantages into a distinct lead as she took off after her copy and started chasing it down.
She just needed one more blow to land in order to finish it off and could see its end drawing near.
It felt right.
Blade fights were brutal and short.
Decided in a single blow.
Just how she liked it.
Aster growled at her copy.
She was not a happy fox.
She had fought. She had been hurt. She had been injured.
But never like this before.
And it made her angry.
Matt had been hurt.
Liz had been hurt.
Susanne had been hurt.
And she hadn’t been able to turn the tide.
Normally, she was more than happy to play the spoiled princess when she could, even if it was mostly in jest.
After their brutal loss, she intended to change that.
No more miss nice fox.
They started off with an [Ice Spear] each, which collided in midair to create a thin cloud of snow between them. A dual [Wind Lance] collision blew that away, leaving them in the same position as before. Elemental mages of the same type often stalemated each other, as the increase in control and power of said element got better the closer it was to the other mage, making defense much easier than offense. That basic dynamic was doubly true for support mages like Aster, who had far more ways to deflect, avoid, or block damage than deal it out.
Fighting against a copy of yourself made that problem so much worse, as there were hardly any tricks or spells that one side could exploit for an advantage. Aster had improved over her time on this floor; they all had, but it was quite difficult to overcome the inherent disadvantages she needed to contend with in order to wound her copy.
Her frozen earth elemental, courtesy of her Boon, allowed her to make unusual types of ice. With her tiara turning [Create Ice] into a minion, the creation lumbered forward as she summoned it into being. Matt had helped her cast the spell a dozen times to strengthen it to the maximum before they took on the boss fight, and she hoped it would help turn the tide.
Her copy threw a barrage of [Ice Spear]s at it, but her minion just absorbed them all without so much as a crack appearing on its surface.
She growled and threw out a flurry of [Wind s***h]es, which her copy was able to dodge and dispel even as it was predominantly occupied with the elemental. She battered at her copy’s Concept with her own, though even with her improved strength in that area, she was still so much better at keeping things from changing than she was at directly hurting someone. Her copy eventually summoned a [Wind Lance] elemental to challenge her elemental, and the two beings began their clash.
Hers was far stronger than her copy’s, as it had been reinforced as much as the tiara would support before she entered, but it was kept busy with blocking its spindly and agile counterpart from reaching her. How long their fight would take, Aster wasn’t sure, but her summon would definitely win in the end.
Still, she intended to help it.
With a thought, she sent a touch of mana into the carpet of talismans that Matt had made for her and attached to her armor before this fight.
Spells shot out in all directions before curving around and targeting her mirror self.
As the spells landed, Aster took painful smattering of [Hail] on her wounded skin, but she scored a single good hit with [Ice Bullet] on her copy’s front leg as it tried to frantically dodge the rain of spells.
If she hadn’t been angry before, a reminder that her copy still had intact fur and an actual tail drove her over the edge.
She rushed her copy with wind lengthening her stride, and they both traded spells ever more quickly as the distance closed. Ice and air collided alarmingly close to her face, but she was focused on her target and her plan. A single [Ice Spear] scored a line down her flank, and that was all she needed to end this fight for good.
Aster froze up quickly and started focusing on dodging as best as she was able while fighting against her copy’s Concept. Standing barely five feet from her clone meant that she had to be absolutely perfect to avoid each strike, but dodging was a skill she had honed for decades.
Sadly, so had her copy, meaning neither of them was actually able to hit the other.
An [Ice Bullet] flew through where she had been a heartbeat before as she dodged left. At nearly the same instant as her paws left the ground, she teleported to the right, just beyond where her copy would see or expect, and lunged at her copy’s neck with [Chomp].
The [Ice Spear] from her copy flew harmlessly through the space Aster would have been occupying if she hadn’t teleported through all the ice and snow they had created around them.
Anger infused her and powered her jaws.
Rage at her helplessness.
No more.
Shaking her head back and forth as hard as she could, she felt bones snap in her copy, but she didn’t let up for even a moment. Aster, strengthened by Matt’s talismans and Liz’s potions, was substantially stronger than her duplicate.
Her old self.
She, and therefore it, was tougher than that, and refused to die so easily. Aster responded by throwing its wounded body to the side, and directed her elemental, as it rejoined their battle, to crush it to a pulp. Repeatedly.
Until she felt Genesis Energy rush into her as the reward for her victory.
Proof it was dead.
- Writer
