"What even is this place?" Lila exhaled, her breath causing a warm mist. "So cold."
She searched for any trace of Ivy. Her footprints - her memory- was nowhere to be found. Lila began to wonder whose dream she was even trapped in.
"This can't be it." Lila tip-toed her way up towards a metallic door, its smooth surface lacking any noticeable mechanism. "There's gotta be more than some hallway."
She tried with her hand, pressing it against the cold metal.
Nothing.
"Shi-." Lila stopped herself. She was with the Ginjous. "Uh."
The Earthling stood perplexed, mere inches from the apparent dead end, as her eyes began to scan desperately for answers.
"Uncle Ivy," one of the Ginjou's leaned forward, nearly slipping from Lila's grasp.
It was Boy who extended his mittens. And with a mere touch of his soft fabric, the door slid open with a hiss. He had been accepted.
"How the-..." Lila's eyes widened. "Guess you guys are the real MVP here."
She slid on by as quietly as she could, finding herself in yet another winding hallway, this time extending into a bend. But before Lila could venture onward, a set of heavy footsteps began to approach from behind. Fear nearly froze the Earthling in place as the clacking noise, almost insectoid in nature, drew closer.
"Fudge fudge fudge," Lila scuttled forward, locating another door to her left as she held out the Ginjous. "You're up, little pals."
Girl huffed before tapping the door, flexing her mitten with a touch of sass. She seemed to have something on her mind beyond the imminent danger. Lila almost wished she could be that blissfully ignorant.
Fortunately for the Earthling, the door revealed a small storage unit of sorts, filled with racks of strange mechanisms that provided her perfect cover. She slid into the farthest, darkest corner without a peep. Yet just as she began to press her back against the wall, a soft creature bumped into her.
"Hah." Lila's Psionic ambience flickered. "Run the fade my-...uh-."
A tiny girl, no taller than three gingers, stared up at Lila with blinking eyes. Her hair was cut short at her bangs, pale as the winter snow. She seemed almost recognizable.
"Hello!" The Ginjous waved in unison just as the door sealed itself shut. "Hehe!"
"Sssh," Lila recoiled. "Hello there. Um."
The little girl kept on blinking. She didn't seem alarmed by Lila's presence. If anything, she was just a little annoyed that someone found her hiding spot.
"What are you doing?" The Earthling knelt. "And who are you?"
"Following," the little girl replied.
Her voice sounded off. Lila could easily imagine a younger Ivy in front of her, and yet she couldn't help but feel that something was off. The Ginjous, however, were convinced.
"Following who?"
Lila noticed her tiny nightgown by then, its length barely hiding her bare feet.
A silky fabric.
Laced with the symbol of her family.
"Momma's in there. Papa won't let me see her," the girl muttered in a low, droning voice. "I like your toys. Cute."
"Hm," Lila smiled. "Well, how about I help you there. Stick together."
She nearly forgot her circumstances. It was like instinct for the Earthling. She saw what felt like Ivy, and had not a question more.
Then again, she was hardly the type to leave a child alone.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The trees shuddered, dried wood splintering as the crimson forest echoed with the soundscape of battle. A flash of silver lit up the horizon, again and again, followed by a faint shimmer of the void. The two girls were far from done.
Ivy rested her hand on the hammer of her revolver, its barrel steaming with scalding hot air. She had employed quite a number of tricks since her mimicry began. But while they succeeded in holding Alia at bay, she was still holding on.
"Tired?" Ivy hissed, tossing her revolver to the side as it dissipated into several shards of glass.
"You have no idea what I've faced," Alia cracked her neck, standing a few feet away in a clearing of ravaged foliage. "This isn't my first dire effort. How's that mind of yours? Feeling erased?"
The heiress squinted, unsure of why the dancer's estimate was skewed. She wasn't quite sure what was happening to her.
Almost like someone else was taking the brunt of it.
"Why does it matter? I'm just a machine, remember?" Ivy bluffed. She knew the fight had to end soon. The risk posed to her bond-mate was becoming more and more apparent, even if she couldn't detect Lila's presence.
Alia frowned, elevating herself above a series of thorns as she raised her left foot. A much larger appendage followed suit from a portal behind her. And while the effort seemed grueling, she managed to land a clean strike on the heiress with what appeared to be a black heel of sorts, its visage only appearing for a brief moment.
Eerily similar to the armor on the Harrow.
Ivy blocked with her staff, sliding across the ground as a bit of her hand began to chafe. Alia stared at the gaps in the heiress's flesh with visible disdain. She practically gawked at the sight of her black endoskeleton.
"Your ambience is subconscious, you know," Alia taunted. "Guess your body must think the pretty hands aren't necessary to protect."
Ivy stepped forward, no longer shocked by her own skeletal appearance. "Look who's talking, you gave up everything for this power. For your mission. I don't need to read your mind to see that. It's why you hate me."
The dancer hid her feelings well. She clutched another nova in her palm, ready to continue the fight. But Ivy wasn't finished.
"I've been thinking about it for a while. Yrix's teachings. They aren't so brutal and meaningless after all. They have a hidden meaning," the heiress circled Alia before reflecting her hidden dagger with a flick of a baton, relaxed as ever. "Our powers reflect who we are. That's what a Psion is. More than the rules or boundaries of our strength. It's why she abducted you."
"Perhaps you'll use that mystical power to find the point," Alia groaned with frustration in her voice.
"Your mirrors," Ivy pointed, her eyes turning red. "They've given you up."
Suddenly, without illusion or technique, her body began to vibrate in a pattern of resonating scales. Her flesh reformed, shorn from its former identity. Ivy was no more.
"You," Alia stammered, gritting her teeth. "Stop that! You don't have the right!"
Standing before her was no heiress, but a dancer.
Alia's identical copy.
"We're so alike, don't you think?" The other dancer stared at her own fingers, taking pleasure in her new form. "Maybe we were fated to end things like this."
"I've dedicated my life to killing your kind!" Alia clenched her other fist, preparing to hurl her nova with greatened fury. "You just don't get it!"
She wasn't afraid to strike herself. She had done it before, in so many different ways. But her attack was emotional enough to be just a smidge more predictable.
Alia's doppelganger shimmered with pale light just before the nova struck. And when the dust settled, she stood unharmed, protected by a barrier identical to that of Lunae's from so long ago.
"I do," the second dancer placed a hand on her bare hip. "It's you who doesn't get it."
Suddenly, she zipped forward, grabbing the real Alia by the throat using the speed of an Earthling and the grip of a Martian. A tail appeared behind her just as her form began to return to that of Ivy.
Lunae's tail.
"W-what?!" Alia gasped, her eyes flickering with fear.
The tail unfurled into a series of small tendrils, slamming into the dancer's bare chest and stripping her of protective power.
"Goodnight," Ivy smiled.
She grappled onto the dancer, manhandling Alia's skinny frame as her black hair draped over the grass.
"W-wait!" Alia blurted out, not yet realizing she was begging in some way. "No!"
She thought that was the end. But as a shimmer of protective energy washed over her head, a look of confusion settled in her reddened face. Then Ivy slammed her down.
Hard.
Onto rock and gravel.
Ivy knew how that felt from her last defeat. But Alia wouldn't have to worry about all the dirty details. She was out cold.
"Pssh," Ivy spat, stumbling back a bit as the dancer rag-dolled onto the dirt. "Ugh."
A wave of mental exhaustion had struck her harder than she expected. The fight was over. But the cost had not yet made itself clear.
"I," Ivy looked down at Alia. She was certain of the dancer's fate. "I'm sorry."
With one last act of mimicry, she called upon a series of glowing coils from Sonera's arsenal. Ivy wasn't quite sure how she knew of that technique, given it had only been used on Lunae. But thinking back on it, perhaps sharing a passionate link with the Infestare was all she needed to pick up the pieces.
"But this ends here."
Ivy got to work.