Chapter 119

Dream State adversity with Doppel-chan in the arena…continued;

We’ve finally worked out our plan. I can see both Sunghee and Fox are hopeful and keep glancing at me for approval. Of course they do that anyway because of the pheromones, like somehow my face is the most wonderful thing ever. But this time its because of the plan, not that my face is that special anyway.

It’s working pretty well so far as we keep baiting Doppel-chan as its falling into place. But we are scared to start it.

“Do we really want to do this?” Sunghee asked. She glances at me looking for a reaction or some type of signal, but I don’t flinch or waver even a bit.

“What other choice is there?” I contested.

“Right, just making sure you are firm on this. It means if you want it me and Fox have to go in guns blazing,” she said.

“I think we have to do this, and it’s not a question of want to or not. Right Shun?” Fox looked to me for confirmation right after.

“Yeah, sorry but we need to try this. We can’t avoid her forever. Let’s do it,” I said giving both girls a slap on the back for encouragement.

“Errr...what’s a gun anyway? I haven’t heard that term,” Fox gives me a blank look.

I glance at Sunghee, who looks apologetic, like she just broke the cookie jar. “Derrp…” I thought I heard her say. She avoids looking me in the eye.

I coughed to try to change the subject.

“And even if we didn’t want to do this, the alternative is running in circles for hours and hours and hours…” Fox started to say but was interrupted.

“Shut up. I can’t take the thought of that right now! Gosh I hate running! If they made people do it in prisons then nobody would ever commit crimes!” Sunghee blurted out.

“Hmm, that’s an interesting thought,” I said.

Then we reversed direction and charged back at the enemy.

We purposefully try to engage Doppel-chan.

“Wha-what? What is this?” Doppel-chan is still strong though she’s been running ragged so long that she’s breathing like a kid with asthma on a track meet day. I almost felt bad for her…but not anymore.

I guess even if she is strong physical strength and body endurance can be totally different.

She lunges at Sunghee, who blocks for us. “I got this,” she quickly said.

It scares me. I can’t lose Sunghee. I’m too attached to her. This whole fight has my stress level higher than its ever been. With previous battles we had an edge; with this one she has the edge instead.

I’m spamming double shielding over Sunghee, who is losing miserably and just barely staying alive. Each hit collapses one part of the double shield, so it’s like I’m also casting runic shielding all the time just to keep Sunghee from getting maimed by the heavy overhand Doppel-chan strike chops. And while it’s going on I can feel my mana sapping like a water strainer.

Suddenly Doppel-chan accidentally breaks her weapon after swinging it too hard and hitting the side of the arena’s stone block structure. And with a loud sound there’s like a metal fatigue snap that fills the arena with a sort of ping like echo that’s harsh to hear. But we’re not the only ones surprised by what just happened.

“Eh? Wha….?” Doppel-chan is momentarily confused.

“Now!” I said to the others.

They rush at her, coming at her from either side of me and trying to also keep her between them for flanking advantages. If it had been anyone else this type of attack would have probably instantly done them in, since they would expose their side by facing one of them.

But Doppel-chan can somehow hang on. I thought the running would take more out of her, but it’s still not enough.

Fox casts a lightning bolt spell that hits Doppel-chan with full force. We can hear Doppel-chan also gasp for breath when the heavy electrical energy attack rolls through her like a wave. She was even gritting her teeth so hard I thought they might break, but she’s still up.

Then Sunghee follows up with her attack at nearly the same time.

“What?!” I’m confused. I can’t intervene. I have to keep shielding ready.

Neither hit knocked her off her feet. Both hit her full force but she’s just like…so heavy in her combat stance and defensively mature that it’s like we can’t tell if we even gained any ground.

She did receive some damage it seems but it took about five seconds to tell that while they were sniping and evading at each other. But considering a lightning bolt from Fox should knock you about ten feet away and also kill most targets quickly it means we’re really outgunned by this monster tank. Sunghee’s slash attacks didn’t do well either. With both my lent Fireman axe and the dwarven warhammer in each hand she’s trying to push her back, but the only thing that’s happened is Doppel-chan is now laughing out loud.

Fox and Sunghee are evading her like a dog retreating from a rabid bear; such is the difference in their strength. And the analogy is probably not a bad one too.

“Hahahahahahahaahahaha.”

Did we just trigger her masochistic urges? Her eyes look feverish while she laughs at us in chase! She’s gotten more excited!

“That metallic echo laugh is so creepy,” Fox said.

“Yeah…” Sunghee gasped as she rolled away from a narrow miss.

Both are trying to back off and wind up for another strike. But suddenly Sunghee jumps back again, and with a hand signal so does Fox.

It wasn’t that Doppel-chan had gotten up. But instead, she’d somehow used her own arms as shields with both of them crossed which theoretically should have her arms completely maimed and bleeding like a sieve; instead, just a bunch of sparks are flying. Plus, it looked like she was trying to feint like she was vulnerable when she wasn’t.

“Ah, that trap was so well done. If you had just been an inch closer,” Doppel-chan’s metallic female voice said as her hand grasped at nothing.

At least that’s what I thought.

“Ouch. That hurt,” Fox said.

One of her tails just lost a few hairs from the tip, which Doppel-chan is sprinkling in the air, from trying to rip off and grab at Fox by her tail. She’d been so fast at striking that she’d punctured two big holes from her first alone into Fox’s runic shielding.

Seeing it, I’m trying to get the shielding back up as soon as possible while Fox temporarily evades. When I try to speedcast like this I have to be very careful I don’t mess up on the runic sequence and glyph sequencing. I can’t rush it or the danger will compound.

“I didn’t think she’d latch on so fast!” Sunghee exclaimed.

Then Doppel-chan pounces, just as my shielding spell is back up. But I’ve only got one shield back up on Fox.

“Watch her moves! Priority is to evade and dodge first!” I commanded. I’m farther back. I don’t have the speed and agility of Fox and Sunghee.

“Copy that,” Sunghee confirmed.

I see Fox takes the order too but doesn’t say anything still.

Fox casts faster than I can even see unleashing her lightning bolt, but this time aims at her head. It whistled by harmlessly and echoes after a lightning explosion hits the far side of the arena wall about a hundred feet away.

Sunghee tried to circle from behind on Doppel-chan and almost got grabbed. It was close. But I intervened. Instead I did something interesting…

I used telekinesis bursts to push Doppel-chan’s hands to the right of Sunghee. I knew that if I pushed directly against Doppel-chan I’d lose and not have enough force. So instead I just redirected the force with a vector addition to the side and even some force gain to fuel propelling a redirect rather than a direct counter.

Telekinesis has an advantage of a short cast time, even if it is a bit weak. The same trick probably won’t work again. It works barely.

I just saved Sunghee from death and she knows it. “Thanks.”

“What? How did I miss?” Doppel-chan stares at her hand.

She then looks at me. “Ah, I felt something. Was it you? Cheating is pathetic kid.”

She is ignoring Fox and Sunghee like they are gnats, and just staring at me. “Why do you fight this? If you were to become part of me, there would be an infinite magic ability produced and we could rule the world together. You could see what real strength is and be part of something. Don’t you want to become strong?” she asked me.

“So I’d be like your finger or tail with no free agency?” I grumbled back at her. I’m sure being part of her wouldn’t be any fun for anyone except her.

She shrugged and still has that annoying metallic voice, “but you’d be strong, stronger than anyone. Isn’t that what you desire? Just because you aren’t driving the wagon doesn’t mean you can’t also reap the benefits of the ride.”

Fox and Sunghee both tried to strike at her while she’s talking. They landed a couple of slashes on her arms that she’s somehow able to completely ignore and swat them away like gnats. She was still distracted by talking to me, but it didn’t do much. Fox hit her in the gut with a lightning bolt, and she did finally flinch but keeps walking towards me.

“Weird.” Fox cursed shaking her head.

Sure enough Doppel-chan strikes back but didn’t get knocked off her feet that time either.

“Crap.” I said.

I hit her with starry missiles spamming like four times each with three missiles each time for a total of twelve white hot darts that whistle like bottle rocket fireworks. They spatter all over her body but it’s almost like there’s very little damage. The slashes on her arms aren’t even bleeding, and it only looks like she’s got bruises there instead.

“Wow,” Sunghee coughed as we’re retreating again.

We keep this up for awhile.

We keep retreating, and then spam magic rays and whatever other offensive techniques that we have; Fox with her lightning bolt, which she does need time to charge up since its mana intensive, and me with my starry missiles. In some ways I have an advantage because I’ve gotten my starry missile damage up, but not enough that it’s overpowering like Fox’s bolt attack. So in the end, I can fire more but do less damage.

Sunghee who doesn’t have magic, still isn’t useless now however. Because the arena is filled with the worst kind of sand that seems to clog the air when you want to breathe, she’d tried to spam kicking and throwing sand in the eyes into Doppel-chan’s mask eye holes. It ironically annoys her much more than our magic attacks do.

That’s unexpected. I hadn’t thought she might hate blinding more than being attacked out right. Perhaps it’s because of how defensively monstrous she’s become.

“What is this? A mosquito convention?! You can’t beat me! You’re just delaying your loss,” Doppel-chan taunts at us.

“She’s mocking us?” Sunghee shakes her head while running desperately away from Doppel-chan’s attacks.

“Now!” Fox said as for the first time since our attacks have begun that we have an opening. It was the only time Doppel-chan’s back was turned towards me. We didn’t want to risk using the stun in any other way and the opening had been created by Sunghee leading it away from being chased from trying to blind her.

We have to be fast though because it looks like Sunghee is also tripping at the same time.

I hit her with the stun full force. This time instead of a wave form I’d emitted the stun like a thin blue ray that sort of glowed like a laser though it didn’t do damage. When it hits Doppel-chan she gasps and staring out almost like someone shot her in the back with a gun.

“Hurry now!” Fox said.

Sunghee loops around and joins me as we come from behind Doppel-chan, who is now flat on her face and stomach eating sand while semi-conscious.

We don’t bother trying to tie her up. It won’t do any good. She’d probably just rip it in two no matter how thick we tied the ropes. And we don’t have enough time to bury her.

But it’s hard work.

Because my dimension door ability lets me take one person directly and one carried…I can’t carry someone when I’m teleporting to some cage high up in the air. That would make one or both of us fall to our death.

The first time I used this spell it fizzles. There’s some kind of mana obstruction I think where I was rushing it and the dynamics didn’t place Doppel-chan’s body fully inside the cage. That’s three seconds lost. I try again.

Whoosh. I feel the vertigo feeling and we’re hanging from the side of the cage as we slam into it and now we’re sliding down the top semi-spherical top. I slide down it while trying to find something to grab onto, but too late I almost dropped Doppel-chan who is now awake. I can see the fear in her eyes as she realizes that she’s about to fall.

Fuck!

She knows where we are! She’s becoming more alert! I have to hurry!

I grab her and slam her back against the cage, but almost end up falling myself. She’s lighter weight than I’d expected. I bet she’s only about a hundred and twenty pounds and rail thin since parts of her body were copied off Fox and Sunghee.

I’m slipping now though and know I can only hang onto her for two seconds without dropping her. If I fail then the plan will be exposed and she’d probably end up blocking any further attempts at using this plan.

Then I hit the dimension door spell just before her fingers slip out from mine. While activating I I pictured her on the inside of the cage with her arm sticking out from between the bars, hanging onto my hand with me sort of…mid-air using her hand to stop from falling to death or worse.

If I can get that far it should be OK, I think…

The vertigo feeling is back, but now I can see Doppel-chan has regained her movement. Her intense angry eyes scream at me with terrible force as I try to get away. But I’m not fast enough. She grips my hand so hard I feel my fingers breaking.

I think I would have puked except my stomach was already empty, because the pain of her grinding my flesh so intensely was really that bad. I’m seeing red and screaming since her force has punctured through my shielding spell almost instantly.

I was only saved by Fox using some kind of substitution technique. I didn’t know she had it. She somehow replaced my body with an illusion while using a mana jump of some kind to grab me and rescue me mid-air.

But that happened not before she’d also crushed the rest of my hand and part of my wrist.

Now I’m on the ground with Fox, who is caring for me and holding me like a mother holding a baby. Except that I want to die. Being maimed like this is more than I can stand. My hand and wrist are totally mangled. The pain is so bad I don’t even know if I can manage a spell.

“You did it!” Sunghee confirmed.

We can hear screams of metal voiced profanity and endless banging of like seizure fits of anger as Doppel-chan is hitting and bouncing with all her force and weight off the cage walls.

“You won’t get away! I always win! You won’t get away!!! I’ll find a way out!” she again screams.

I’m so out of it and barely able to even keep from biting my tongue off in pain while Fox is helping me lay down with the least amount of movement.

“I know this sounds harsh Shun. But if you don’t fix that wound write away, we’ll have to cut off your arm. That’s gangrene waiting to happen. And spell work is likely to also fail about 90 percent of the time with an injury like that,” Fox said.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry!” Sunghee keeps saying over and over. She’s feeling like something similar to survivor’s guilt or something.

But this pain…there’s no way I can even get a spell off like this can I?

It’s so awful I want to die.