Villainess 5: Janet's Second Retry

Red Pill 24: Swords, Bucklers

When Janet entered the third-floor hallway of the Academy, stepping into RuRu’s shadow in the light of everyone’s lamps, she paused at the wide-eyed reactions of her friends and her club advisor and her clones and even those of her mother and Lady Graves and Abbess Maxine and RuRu and DeeDee, all looking at their surroundings. That’s when she noticed an almost impenetrable darkness permeating the entire hallway, obscuring everything outside of the light of their lamps. Then she thought she was wearing her weird getup again, but on checking herself and seeing her school uniform, she said to herself, “What’s going on?”

Then DeeDee and RuRu turned their heads in Janet’s direction, and everything stopped. Yet after a moment, DeeDee and RuRu broke free of the stasis and approached Janet, while everyone else stayed still.

“What did you do?” Janet said.

“We stopped time to reach you,” DeeDee said. “If you hadn’t said anything, we would have struggled to find you under this darkness.”

“But why is that?”

“It’s your aura, Janet,” RuRu said.

“When both of your affinities are activated,” DeeDee added, “the darkness obscures the environment, and the aether obscures your spiritual presence from us.”

“Meaning?” Janet said.

“You’re very hard to spot,” RuRu said.

“And with your clones,” DeeDee added, “you’re the perfect spy, but you must be careful from now on. Since you’re not affiliated with the Church of the Holy Light, you’ll become a heretic if they discover your Black Saintess title.”

“So what do I do then?”

“Just leave it to me,” DeeDee said. “I can obscure titles with your aether affinity during school hours. Just be careful in your title confirmation this Friday.”

“Title confirmation?”

“Ah, you were absent from Father Robinson’s class on Monday,” DeeDee said. “The magic aptitude text is composed of two steps, both taken on Monday and Friday of this school week. You’re just not told what day you’ll take your title confirmation till the day you take it, so there’s no chance of faking titles. But since Lady Dorian hasn’t taken the magic aptitude test but has possession of Rosalie’s original test results, she’ll have the Prince and her shadowy helpers cover for her.”

Janet paused, then said, “Is the Prince in on it?”

“Up to a point, yes,” DeeDee said. “Why else would he be so bull-headed against you in favor of a fake? But I don’t think he knows the whole truth, so Lady Dorian has been using his profile book to implant thoughts into his head to make sure he won’t croak to anyone that could compromise her.”

“And who is that?” Janet said.

“It’s more like, who are they, Janet,” DeeDee said. “Namely, Father Robinson and Father Joseph Reeves.”

“Wait,” Janet said, remembering her suicide clone talking to her in Homeroom 1 about this Reeves fellow. “Was Father Reeves the one who went insane?”

DeeDee nodded and said, “He and the Prince are first cousins, but that’s all I know of their relationship. Since I can’t open the Prince’s book, and since there are pages torn out of Father Reeves’ book, I can’t glean much beyond his current location at the Bridgewater Asylum. Still, I’ve noticed that none of the pages left intact mention anything about Lady Dorian or Miss Edgeworth. In other words, Lady Dorian must have told her helpers to remove anything identifying her true self from Father Reeves’ profile book when they infiltrated my shop. After we’re done here, and after you talk to your father, we’ll try contacting Father Reeves.”

Then RuRu leaned over and whispered something else into DeeDee’s ear, so she nodded and said, “Janet, I want you to repeat the same thing you did to get here. But instead of your darkness affinity, use your aether affinity to sneak up on one of your clones.”

“But ghosts don’t have shadows,” Janet said.

“You don’t need shadows,” DeeDee said. “We have astral bodies, both the living and the dead. Just imagine yourself touching their astral bodies, and you’ll be right there with them when I count down.”

Janet nodded, thinking of reaching out to one of her clones (her suicide clone) and touching her shoulder from behind, then took a deep breath and reached out her hand—

(As DeeDee was counting down and saying, “Three . . . Two . . . One . . .”)

—and appeared right behind her suicide clone, her hand over her shoulder, making her doppelgänger jump and let out an ear-piercing scream through the hallway. Her double wheeled around, facing her with wide eyes and gaping mouth, as everyone else was staring at the source of the commotion with similar expressions on their faces.

Then her clone said, “Geez, what was that for? I’m a ghost, and I thought I was gonna die!”

“Sorry about that,” Janet said. “RuRu and DeeDee are having me test out my powers.”

Her clone sighed and said, “It’s all good.”

“Listen: before we start the experiment,” DeeDee said, walking with RuRu through the gathered crowd, “there are two more things I want you to try, and then I’ll have RuRu help you apply them,” and she bade her to follow her to the wall of Classroom 1-3C, Janet’s former homeroom class.

Janet followed, saying, “Tell me what to do.”

“Touch the wall like this,” DeeDee said, putting her hand flat against it.

Janet did so. “Like this?”

“Yes,” DeeDee said. “Now imagine your hand passing through it,” and she passed her hand through it like a hologram, making Janet’s clones and club mates gape.

So Janet imagined it and passed her hand through, saying, “This is incredible.”

“I know, right?” she said. “Now touch someone else’s hand and imagine it passing through like before.”

So Mindy and the Drevis sisters came up to her and offered their hands for her to hold, and Janet held onto Mindy’s hand with her right hand and Jean’s hand with her left, while Saraya was left pouting. She felt their hands chilly in her grasp, thinking as she was bidden, and felt their hands pass through hers like holograms. When Saraya asked for her turn, so did Kevin and Ridley and even Baron Underwood, so Janet tried it with the others and got the same result.

“DeeDee, can we also do that?” Mindy Kessler said.

Yet DeeDee shook her head, saying, “Only Janet and other ghosts can do it.”

“But our contract with you—”

“—only gives minor affinities,” DeeDee said. “Things like spectral hands, astral intangibility, and astral projection are major ones.”

“No fair!” Mindy said.

“So not fair!” Jean said.

“I know, right?” Saraya said.

“Are you jealous, girls?” RuRu said.

“Of course, we are!” they all said in unison.

“Well, you’ll get more jealous in a bit,” RuRu said and stepped in behind Janet.

So Janet turned around and found RuRu crouching over Janet’s shadow on the floor and reaching her arm into the depths up to her shoulder. So she said, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find them,” RuRu said.

“Find what exactly?”

“Ah, there they are,” RuRu said and pulled out an arming sword, then another arming sword, then a buckler, and then another buckler. She got back up and gave her a sword and buckler, saying, “Here you go.”

Janet took them, feeling their weight in the grip of her hands and noticing the ease with which she held them like a seasoned foot soldier on the practice grounds.

RuRu picked up the other ones from the floor and said, “Do you recognize these things?”

And the answer came at once with Janet saying, “This is an arming sword, and this is a buckler. Wait, how do I even know these terms?”

“Looks like you’re ready.”

“Wait a minute,” Janet said. “Ready for what?”

“For a sparring match, silly,” RuRu said, then added some distance between herself and Janet and bent her legs just past shoulder width with one foot forward and one foot back, then held her sword above her shoulder like a lumberjack’s ax and held her buckler out in front of her from an extended arm. “Try fighting me, Janet.”

“Are you serious?” Janet said.

“I’m dead serious,” she said. “I want to see what you can do. Try to fight me, okay?”

“But I don’t know how,” Janet said.

So Rowena said, “What are you picking a fight for?”

Yet DeeDee held her back and motioned the rest to back away, saying, “Give them some space, everyone.”

“You too?” Rowena said.

“It’s just a sparring match,” DeeDee said.

“But Janet’s never used a sword before!” she said.

“No need to worry, Mama Goose,” RuRu said, getting out of her fighting stance. “Now that she’s awakened her powers, DeeDee and I want to see how strong she really is. Also, look at this,” and she pinned her buckler in the crook of her armpit and removed her hand and then ran her finger along the length of the blade, making Janet wince and grimace. “See what I mean? This is just a sparring sword. The blade is dull from end to end, and the tip is rounded off.”

“It’s okay,” DeeDee said.

Rowena let out a sigh and said, “If you say so,” but then she pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then pointed them in RuRu’s direction, meaning she was watching her.

“I know already, geez!” RuRu said.

“So long as we understand each other,” Rowena said, “I won’t interfere with your antics.”

With that, Rowena and DeeDee joined Janet’s club mates and half of her clones on Janet’s side of the hall, leaving Maxine and Lady Graves and the other half of Janet’s clones on RuRu’s side of the hall. The lamps of her clones and her friends illuminated both sides of the hallway in a spectral green glow, except for Janet’s own lamp in Rowena’s hand glowing dark red with a green corona around its edge.

After that, RuRu re-equipped the buckler and said, “Come at me whenever you’re ready.”

“But I don’t know how,” Janet said.

“Oh, but you do,” RuRu said.

“How do you even know?”

“I can feel it from your aura,” RuRu said.

“I don’t get what you’re saying,” Janet said. “Am I supposed to feel something?”

“Yes,” DeeDee added, but when Janet turned to look back, she said, “Eyes to your opponent, dear.”

“But I don’t know how to fight!” Janet said.

“Yes, you do,” DeeDee said. “You’ve got the strength and speed of thirty-one of your clones already combined inside of your body, in addition to their memories. And you’ve also got the training and battlefield experience of Sir Abram and John Day in your subconscious. You’ve got the strength and knowledge of thirty-three individuals all within your body and mind.”

“But how would I know?”

“You won’t,” DeeDee said, “until you try.”

“Use any means necessary to fight me,” RuRu said. “I want to see what you can do.”

“What do you mean by ‘any means necessary?’” she said, yet when RuRu looked past her, Janet turned and spotted Rowena staring hard at RuRu. So she turned back around and said, “Good God, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking first blood,” RuRu said, “but since your mom’s here, we’ll settle with three hits. Whether it's with our swords or our bucklers, the first to get in three good hits wins the spar.”

“How hard are the hits?”

“Good solid hits,” RuRu said and banged the blade of her sword against her buckler, the third-floor hallway echoing with a lingering ding. “You can hit me however you like, but since you’re flesh and blood, Janet, you’ll need your battle dress for this spar.”

Janet gulped, feeling her cheeks flush with warmth, and said, “Is there another option to that?”

“Well, there’s always another option,” RuRu said, smiling, “but that’s only if you want wicked-looking bruises to show your friends after tonight.”

“All right, I’ll change!” Janet said.

“That’s a good girl,” RuRu said. “Just think of getting pushed into the fountain, and you’ll change into your battle dress straight away.”

Janet gaped, saying, “Did you—”

That’s when RuRu laughed and said, “My antics aren’t just antics. There’s a method to my madness.”

Janet deadpanned at her.

“Come on. Time’s a-ticking,” RuRu said.

Janet gulped again, closing her eyes and remembering the tumble and the splash and the inundation of water into her ears, falling and then floating inside of her mind. Yet when she opened her eyes again, she was wearing the getup: the band and black veil and white-caped gown and cuffed sleeves and black gloves and boots, her stockinged thighs showing through the slits in her skirt.

“Does this even count as a battle dress?”

“Yep,” RuRu said. “It’s made out of your affinity pools, and they’re both the size of cabins. It’ll protect you. And since we’re darkness affinity users, any injuries we sustain in this sparring session will heal up in a bit.”

“So it’s still gonna hurt?”

“Of course, it’s gonna hurt, but pain builds character,” she said, then to DeeDee: “Call the hits?”

“I will,” DeeDee said. “And let’s make this spar three rounds, three hits each.”

“WHAT?” Rowena said. “DeeDee, what the hell?”

So she pointed at the lamp in Rowena’s hand, saying, “To conduct our experiment, we need that lamp filled with enough darkness affinity to do it.”

Rowena grimaced.

“Do you understand?” DeeDee said.

“All right, I understand, geez!” Rowena said.

“Good,” DeeDee said, then bent down and placed her hand over the ground, and a magic circle formed around the two combatants a moment later, inscribing them within a sparring circle around the width of the hallway. Then she doubled herself and doubled herself again, forming four DeeDees who stationed themselves around the four cardinal points of the circle. “This spar is three rounds. Keep within the circle during all three rounds. You may hit your opponent in any way you wish, but only hits with the sword and buckler will count. As such, you may hit your opponent anywhere on the body, except for the head and face. The first to get three hits in two rounds wins the spar. Now do you both acknowledge these rules?”

Janet and Ruru nodded.

“Then you may begin!” DeeDee said.

Round one began with RuRu taking up her stance, her legs slightly bent with one foot forward and one foot back, her buckler held out in front of her and her sword held over her shoulder.

That’s when Janet saw that RuRu was another lefty, her sword in her left hand and her buckler in her right. Fighting RuRu would be like fighting herself.

“Are you ready, Janet?” RuRu said.

Janet nodded and let her body move on its own as if it was going off of someone else’s practice drills, and she realized she was going off of John Day’s practice drills as a commoner man-at-arms during his conscription with the Old Guard under the command of Captain Jude Fleming. So she copied RuRu’s footwork and stance, her buckler held out in front of her and her sword held over her shoulder. In this way, Janet approached RuRu as they circled each other, closing in on her opponent, stealing glances at RuRu’s sword hanging menacingly above her shoulder, waiting for her opponent to make her move.

“Any time now,” RuRu said.

“You go first,” Janet said, biding her time.

RuRu smiled and said, “Then it’s your loss,” and she vanished from view—

And appeared on Janet’s right with her sword swinging down. And the next thing she knew, when RuRu struck home, a flower of pain bloomed from Janet’s forearm, and a jabbing buckler socked her in the solar plexus. Janet winced and grimaced, her wind taken out of her as she stumbled from the circle and almost went out of bounds. Gritting through the pain, she was just starting to regain her footing, just starting to see RuRu’s stratagem of using her shadow against her, and just realizing that RuRu was nowhere in sight again . . .

(“First hit, RuRu!” one DeeDee said.

“Second hit, RuRu!” another DeeDee added amidst an eruption of voices, among which was that of Rowena complaining about RuRu’s cheap shots.)

So Janet blinked out of sight—

And avoided RuRu’s second sneak attack, her sword almost clipping Janet’s buckler-arm again. Then a wincing and grimacing Janet appeared on the other side of the circle within the shadow of one of the four DeeDees close to the circle, dropping her weaponry and bowling over, clamping her hand to her flaring forearm as she willed herself through the pain. DeeDee asked if she could continue, so Janet just managed an affirmative nod. Then she started shaking the limb that had gone numb from the sword strike, opening and closing her hand to get the feeling back in, then felt where RuRu’s buckler had struck her hard below her ribs and winced again.

Janet said to RuRu, “What was that?”

So RuRu said, “It’s the art of taking someone down in three hits or less.”

That’s when Lady Graves and Maxine were calling RuRu a cheater from the sidelines, and Janet’s clones were booing RuRu, and her club mates and her club advisor were asking if Janet was okay, and a distraught Rowena was asking DeeDee to stop the spar, yet DeeDee replied that Janet had already indicated she still wanted to continue as is.

Amidst the hubbub, Janet stood erect and said, “You can’t expect me to fight like that! I’d be expelled if I did anything like that.”

“I’m not teaching you sportsmanship, dear,” RuRu said. “I’m teaching you how to win a fight.”

“More like assault.”

“Call it what you will,” RuRu said.

“I thought this was a sparring session,” she said.

“It is,” RuRu said, “but forget about fair play: it’s all meaningless if you die.”

“But—”

Janet stopped herself.

“But what?” RuRu said. “What is it?”

Janet remained quiet, deep in thought. Even when her throbbing forearm told her that RuRu was right, Janet still found herself thinking the worst case scenario, and she knew the reason why yet shrunk away from acknowledging it.

“Say something,” RuRu said.

Janet blinked back tears, saying, “It’s nothing. Let’s continue.”

“It’s not ‘nothing,’ dear,” RuRu said.

“Janet, what’s going on?” Rowena said from the sidelines.

So Janet voiced her demons, saying, “God forbid, if I have to kill someone, even if it’s Lady Dorian . . .”

Everyone went silent.

So she let her words drift off, unable to say the rest in a question or in a complete statement, even when her body was telling her that it could happen. Janet was not ignorant: she knew that behind the polite etiquette, the genteel bows and curtsies, the cheerful words, and the sparkling smiles of high society, there loomed an invisible underbelly of misery, carved in rivulets of blood from the broken crowns and tears from the vengeful eyes of her clones. She knew murder was wrong, but she also knew that if she kept walking this path to its inevitable end, she might have to face her nemesis. If such were to happen, would she be able to kill Lady Dorian? Would she even be able to handle it?

That’s when RuRu dropped her sword, letting it clang on the floor, then approached Janet and slapped her face. And in the echoing aftermath, she said, “Look, I know where you’re coming from, but I didn’t make you the Black Saintess, only for you to contemplate murder.”

“But—”

“There are no buts,” RuRu said. “When I had you swear to prosecute the guilty, I wasn’t telling you to kill them: I was telling you to apprehend them for their crimes. You are the Black Saintess, not the Grim Reaper. That means saving lives, not killing them! Do you understand?”

Janet nodded that she did.

“You may call my methods brutal,” RuRu said, “but don’t ever confuse them with my intentions,” and she went over to the other side of the circle and picked up her sword. “Let’s keep sparring, okay?”

Janet nodded and picked up her sword and buckler and faced her opponent with renewed vigor. Despite the previous hits, she felt their aftereffects feeding into her mana pool the more she moved. That’s when she realized the true power of her darkness affinity: it’s not about avoiding or even assuaging pain but enduring it, letting it assimilate into her body like calluses over a boxer’s knuckles.

With this in mind, she waited for RuRu to take up her stance and matched her footwork, but she adopted a different configuration of sword and buckler to counter RuRu’s stance. Since RuRu was using her previous pose, her buckler held out in front of her and her sword held over her shoulder, Janet held herself like an injured boxer, her buckler held close to her body and her sword-arm wrapped over her solar plexus and her sword held beneath the armpit of her buckler-arm like she was drawing from a scabbard. But this time, she eschewed closing the distance with RuRu and took the initiative, swinging her blade and taking a knee and blinking out of sight—

And clipping RuRu’s shin with a good hard thwack. Yet at the same time, RuRu’s sword connected, and Janet felt another flower of pain blooming from her upper arm.

(“First hit, Janet!” one DeeDee said.

“Third hit, Ruru!” another DeeDee added amidst another eruption of voices, of Rowena and Maxine and Lady Graves cheering Janet on and of Janet’s clones and friends booing the designated bad girl that was RuRu.

Then a third DeeDee said, “RuRu wins the first round!”

And the fourth DeeDee added, “Take up your positions for round two, girls.”)

Yet for a time, Janet and RuRu remained writhing on the floor, Janet holding her arm and RuRu holding her shin, both women moaning in agony and cussing each other out. Janet was complaining about getting struck in the arm twice, and RuRu shot back that she didn’t have to hit her so hard on the shin. Tears were shed, more cussing ensued, and those gathered on both sides of the sidelines were in an uproar as if this spar was a championship finals match taking place in a public venue with the crowds booing and cheering and making bets on who’s gonna come out on top. Only when the pain subsided enough did both combatants get to their feet and take their weapons with them to their sides of the circle.

Round two began with both combatants resuming their footwork but adopting new poses with their armaments. RuRu went for an open stance, holding her buckler out in front and her sword just behind her hips with the blade point facing forward, so Janet changed her configuration, holding her buckler close to her chest and her sword high over her head. In this way, if RuRu swung up and Janet swung down, Janet would have the momentum advantage with gravity working in her favor.

“Come at me, girl,” RuRu said.

So Janet obliged and blinked out of sight with her sword swinging down—

Yet when their blades clanged and echoed through the hallway, Janet’s momentum had stopped. RuRu had her figured out and caught her in the bind with the edges of her sword and her buckler wedging her blade in place.

That’s when John Day’s training kicked in when his memory of Captain Jude Fleming’s words of advice surfaced through Janet’s thoughts after the young John Day had pulled out of the bind with another opponent during practice and had paid for it with a sword strike to his helmeted head that left him sprawled out on the practice grounds, till Captain Fleming woke him up with smelling salts. Afterwards Captain Fleming spoke to John Day and asked him not to hold any grudges against his opponent. So John Day sucked in his pride and said he’ll do that, but then he asked the Captain how he could get out of the bind. To this, Captain Fleming told him that the ‘bind’ was the blade-on-blade equivalent of the ‘clinch’ in a grapple, so he admonished the youth to remember his failures on the practice grounds in order to grow as a soldier. In this way, John Day would rely more on his training whenever he found himself in the bind with the enemy on the battlefield.

In the space of a thought, Janet gained two lessons from this: first, know thyself; second, train as you fight and fight as you train. Since she couldn’t withdraw without getting countered, Janet threw her buckler like a boxer’s right hook into RuRu’s unprotected sword-hand (“Ahhhhh!” RuRu screamed.), breaking the bind and making her opponent drop her sword.

(“First hit, Janet!” one DeeDee said.)

With RuRu injured and distracted, Janet ducked through her guard and smashed her buckler into RuRu’s solar plexus in a vicious uppercut, bowling her opponent over. As the onlookers roared to life from the sidelines—

(“Second hit, Janet!” another DeeDee said.)

—Janet discarded her weapons and grabbed the fabric of RuRu’s blouse at her shoulders, then wedged her foot against her waist and let gravity do the rest as Janet rolled onto her back, launching her opponent up and over.

And when RuRu landed on her back, dislodging her buckler from her grasp, Janet scrambled to her feet and grabbed the nearest object (her buckler) and ran and leaped at the supine RuRu in a diving attack. Only, it wasn’t a diving attack: it was a running leap through the air, her buckler held in two hands flat against her butt in midair, till her buckler and her butt and the rest of her body weight came crashing down onto RuRu’s stomach before sliding off of her—

And left both women in agony. In fact, there came a whoosh of air from RuRu, then her screams as she turned onto her side and curled into the fetal position, cradling her stomach in her forearms and flailing the shins of her legs, cursing up a storm of f-bombs at Janet. As for Janet, when her tailbone hit the buckler’s handle on impact, she felt a jolt through her body, making her jackknife herself with her knees up to her chest, pressing one of her hands to the cleft of her butt and adding to RuRu’s screams of mutual pain.

(“Third hit, Janet!” one DeeDee said.

“First hit, RuRu!” another DeeDee added.

“Janet wins the second round!” a third DeeDee added.

And then the fourth DeeDee said, “Take up your positions for round three, girls.”)

At first, Janet’s clones and club mates and club advisor and even Rowena and Lady Graves and Maxine all cheered, yet when RuRu spat up blood and Janet shed tears, they stopped cheering and started mumbling ‘Oh my God!’ and ‘Holy shit!’ and ‘Are they okay?’ and the like under their breath. Some of them had their hands cupped over their mouths, and some started with wide horrified eyes, and others averted their gazes altogether. All the while, RuRu and Janet remained writhing on the floor, till Janet managed to get herself on her hands and knees, rubbing her backside as she watched RuRu continue wincing and grimacing and opening and closing her injured sword-hand while keeping her forearms pressed to her stomach.

Yet through the pain, something within Janet fluttered like the flaps of a fledgling trying its wings, for the sight of RuRu wiping her sleeve over the spittle of blood from her mouth had broken the ice between them. That’s when another memory surfaced through her thoughts, in which John Day’s opponent visited him and apologized for knocking him out the previous day, breaking the ice between them. John Day accepted his apology and introduced himself to his new friend, and his friend introduced himself as Sir Abram of the Gate. That’s when Janet realized a third lesson from Captain Jude Fleming’s words to John Day: today’s fight is tomorrow’s friendship.

Wiping away her tears, Janet eased herself into a kneeling position and said, “RuRu, can you get up?”

“I’ll try,” RuRu said, propping herself up with an elbow and returning to her fetal position in agony. “Fuck, it hurts! You’re a crazy ass, you know that? I’ve never seen anyone do what you just did. You’re nuts!”

Janet winced and said, “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” RuRu said. “Besides, pain builds character, remember?”

“Geez, are you a masochist?”

“At least I’m not crazy like you!” RuRu said.

Then Janet and RuRu laughed, till they were both wincing again. As such, with the ice between them clearing up, they called two DeeDees over for assistance.

So the two DeeDees entered the circle and asked RuRu and Janet if they could continue. To their questions, RuRu and Janet said that they’ll be fine in a bit, and when asked if they needed time to recuperate, they both said yes. With that, both DeeDees helped Janet and RuRu to their feet and guided them to opposite sides of the circle by the walls of the hallway. Then a third DeeDee started gathering up the swords and bucklers and placing them at the feet of both combatants, while a fourth DeeDee (maybe the original one) was talking with the other two DeeDees about the situation.

All the while, Rowena and Janet’s friends and clones asked if Janet was okay, and Janet assured them she was fine, even when her tailbone was still aching.

While recovering, Janet studied her surroundings. On either side of DeeDee’s impromptu sparring circle were Janet’s clones and peers all holding lamps with their lamplights casting shadows behind the four DeeDees stationed just outside its circumference. As such, DeeDee’s shadows were darkest on the portions of the circle by its perimeter about a few feet away from both walls and got more diffuse the further these shadows reached towards the centerline of the sparring circle, which meant there were four routes to dodge your opponent’s sneak attacks or launch attacks of your own. With Janet and RuRu as the other two shadow-casters on a circular plane, their positions in the circle determined if and when to launch their attacks or dodge. As such, in the first round, RuRu launched two sneak attacks, forcing Janet to dodge the second one, so Janet retaliated with her own attack and paid for it with RuRu’s counter at the same time. Yet in the second round, only Janet launched a sneak attack, while RuRu stayed in place. Why did she stay in place?

Then Janet caught one of the DeeDees (maybe the original one) looking at her, smiling. Her smile told Janet she knew something that was just beyond her ken, so she gave it more thought. If RuRu could only have used her sneak attack when using one of the DeeDees’ shadows to attack Janet’s blind spot in round one, then neither she nor Janet could have used any nearby shadows where there were none in round two, because DeeDee’s shadows couldn’t reach the centerline of the sparring circle. That could only mean one thing, and Janet kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. RuRu had duped her into playing her own game, making her use her own shadow-teleportation technique when Janet already had two options from DeeDee. Hence, when Janet had used DeeDee’s astral-teleportation technique in the second round, she hadn’t even realized it—

Until now.

When the gathering at the sidelines settled down, RuRu started taking deep breaths and appeared to be okay, and Janet’s painful tailbone had subsided into nothing. Then two of the DeeDees asked the combatants if they were fit to go on, and both girls said they were clear to continue.

Yet before that, RuRu said, “DeeDee, how much darkness affinity do we need for the experiment?”

So one of the DeeDees (the original) entered the sidelines, approaching Rowena holding onto Janet’s lamp and placing her hand over its glowing red surface. “It’s three-quarters full,” she said. “One more round should do it,” and she returned to her designated spot by the circle. “All right, time to end this, girls. Get on with it.”

To Be Continued