Hands clammy. Throat dry. It was here to get me again, just like last time.
Not like last time. Don’t think about the clawing, cloying, claustrophobic press of its body from all around—
It’s just standing there. Menacing me.
I squinted at it.
Is it afraid of me?
Probably not. But clinging to that thought was preferable to any alternative. Either way, there was no way I was channeling anything but fear now. [Arms & Arms proficiency] wasn’t even charged. Neither of my joy spells were.
You’re level 28 now. That’s a lot.
Slowly, I rose to my full height. The ceiling felt awfully low, but it wasn’t forcing me to crouch quite yet. I gave it a touch, not letting the mimic out of my sight.
“System. What kind of barrier is this?”
[Cloaked Dueling barrier]
A barrier that appears invisible to all outside observers. Bars entry and exit to Custodian Sam, her abilities, and modes of communication. Dispelled by removing the Custodian or barrier creator from the barrier.
Estimated difficulty: Lvl 45
My heart sagged. Death. This barrier was made to kill me.
But why? The mimic shouldn’t know that I didn’t have any extra lives left. Gambling so much time, effort, and magic on killing me would be incredibly risky if I did. Unless…
Among the spell options the lesser Ur-mimic essence had given me, there was one that allowed it to learn exactly what it needed to..
It sampled my brain. Figures. With the two bodies I left behind, it had plenty of opportunity. It knows me, inside and out. But I’m not ignorant. While it has upgraded versions of the abilities which I was offered in my essence, I know exactly which ones those are.
Brain sampling. Illusions. Environmental adaptation, aka even better shapeshifting than anything else.
And then there was the barrier. I was stuck, but the Ur-mimic could leave at any time. Physically removing it from the barrier was one way to get out of this; barriers weren’t fast to set up or it would have caught me on the way in when it had more forces available.
But seriously, it only blocked me and nobody else?
I’m honored.
Idly, affecting bewilderment, I ordered one of my spider mines to head out past the impassable wall. It did, and I immediately lost contact with it. Figures. I sent a second out to loop around, and focused back on my opponent.
The ur-mimic. The creature that made Addy’s life hell, that stole her mentor and two years of her life.
It’s just standing there. Which means—
Movement, behind me.
I twisted around, shooting a pair of my own arms poking out of the wall. They dissipated, much like my illusions.
Watch out for the second one.
When I snapped back forward, there was already a tiny mimic sailing at my face. I batted it aside. Also an illusion, except — ow. My… leg?
There was a third, real mimic wrapped around my leg, the edges of its sheet-metal disguise digging into my calf, but not getting through it. Body plus [Vampirism I] were preventing it.
I shot it with a Toothpick, but the damage was done. My boots were seared and my leg was bleeding slightly.
The Ur-mimic was still standing there, grinning. I shot at it, but wouldn’t you know it, it was also a fucking illusion. Which was weird. Not the repeated attempts to distract and bamboozle me, that was just good form. But when I saw an Illusion I could see through it, like a professional artist looking at a newcomer’s portrait and pointing out the uncanny anatomy.
But why? And how? I’m not some special girl, I can just see ghosts, a-and… oh. The vampire essence. It increased bloodline potency. There really was something wrong with me all this time, huh?
What a bummer.
Better not let the mimic know I can see through its tricks.
Laughter echoed all around. My own laughter.
“A freaking fine duel this is,” I hissed, pressing my back against the wall. Less chance of a real ambush like that. “What? Too cowardly to take me one on one?”
The laughter raised in pitch as I sent a body double to the left and right. I was only able to control two at a time due to the mental overhead, but with the extra Soul I could recharge the spell in under ten seconds.
“Answer me!”
The ground I was standing on shifted. Tendrils and spikes impaled my body doubles and me all at once, aiming for the chest. My illusions dissipated, and the mimic that hit me exploded into smithereens as my chestpiece retaliated. I jumped back, scorching the ground all around.
There go two body doubles. H-haha, I’m channeling screw-you levels of fear, I can recast in… seven seconds.
If it tries to envelop me again, my chest armor will keep it off me.
Courage was gathering. My hands were shaking less. There were plenty of places to hide in this barrier. That counted for it, and for me as well.
“Dodge this you bubblegum bastard.”
I blasted a corner I’d spotted movement in with a high explosive bazooka shot. There was a hiss and a screech. I gained some coins, but not enough for it to have been my intended target.
Something between a dog and a human lunged at me out of the corner of my eye. I threw myself on the floor, not wanting to take my chances. It still raked me over the back, chestpiece spending more charge to retaliate. I sent lasers and two fiery slugs where it landed, but it turned on a dime, twisting out of the way as it morphed into a giant stickbug with mantis arms and scintillating mirror-like scales. I would’ve felt joy at the extraordinarily detailed, life-sized bug, if it weren’t trying to kill me.
It grew its arm in a split second, then slashed both me and the body double in the middle of peeling off of me. It scored a jagged gash along my upper left arm while one of my lasers skimmed off its side. Damn reflective carapace.
Then the spider mine I’d concealed beneath my feet jumped it in the face. Its head jerked back as the mine chirped happily, then exploded. Shrapnel embedded itself into my armor as I threw myself behind a steel roller. The air filled with an inhuman warble.
Jumped your face! Not so smug now, are you?
Dust was everywhere, irritating my eyes. I pushed around the far side of the steel roller, determined to finish it off.
In place of a corpse, I found a scorched bit of mimic skin.
Shit.
I’d lost sight of it. The inside of the dome was quiet again.
“More spider eyes,” I muttered, growing an extra pair on the back of my neck. The mimic was going to try another ambush. It could shapeshift awfully quickly, and into living things too. What was next, a spear-attack with a narwal’s horn? A blue-whale bodyslam? It could come from anywhere. From above. From below.
I found my back against the barrier again. My backpack phased through, as did my armor, leaving its cold nothingness to shock my skin..
Calm down. Count your resources. Still got some spider-mines — two, three… I had more. A lot more. Where are they?
Outside of the barrier, where my signal couldn’t reach. Dammit.
Movement. Something coalesced right in my sights, fifty yards down, the center of the barrier. A leg grew out of the ground, then a hand, a torso, a face, a-a…
“Becca.” It looked just like her, from her carrot-orange hair to the freckles on her face to the faded scar just below her collarbone. Below, her body looked different from the last time I’d seen her nude, different but so familiar.
“Samantha,” she, no, it said. “Samantha Samantha Samantha Samantha. Samantha. Help me.”
My hands were shaking again. Eyes teary. I raised my Spab-4’s ironsight to my face.
“You monster.” It was all a distraction. Even knowing that, I shot the damn fake Rebecca. It poofed into so much smoke.
Another one appeared, this one right next to me, clinging to my arm like a Siren trying to pull me under.
“Samantha.”
I shot it, and ran clockwise along the edge of the barrier. There were more.
“Samantha.”
More and more and more.
“Samantha.”
It was trying to unnerve me, to prevent me from channeling any one emotion consistently enough to charge my spells. Hiding behind an ancient tank that once held acid but now only stored dust and rust shavings saved me from the tortuous view, but not the sound.
“Samantha, help me.”
It had to be spending resources to create so many illusions. Was it a lot? Was it little?
It’s waiting for an opening to strike. That’s my only chance to strike back.
I rummaged through my backpack, hearing a spider mine explode awfully close. This was going to be quick and dirty. Hopefully it worked.
Every time my illusions take sufficient damage, they get destroyed. The same goes for the mimic’s illusions. Just because they’re fake doesn’t mean they’re see through like ghost; a real mimic could always be hiding behind a fake one.
I just have to keep destroying them while looking for the real ambush.
Turns out, there was more than one real ambush.
Something solid smacked my Toothpick out of my upper right arm. Another sliced a left arm to ribbons, leaving it useless. Leaper spines shot from shadows, embedding themselves into my armor until its enchantments were well and truly empty.
I scored a hit. Just once, I thought that one of the illusions convulsed in pain before disappearing into the crowd. It didn’t matter as long as I couldn’t get a solid hit in.
Slowly, it whittled my resources away. Spider mines. Special ammo. Emotional stability. I had to turn the tables, even if it meant risking a miscast.
“Arms & Arms Pro—”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
My voice was stuck in my throat. It was pulled out of me like a living mist, wafting over to one of the illusions, which had opened its mouth. A long, glassy worm like a nematode as thick as my arm bulged out of its throat. It slurped up my voice-mist, its body growing darker and fatter as it did.
I can’t talk.
I couldn’t even scream. Every vocalized sound was cut off at the very source. All I could do was breathe.
I can’t chant a spell.
[Warning! Voice stealer detected. Slay the voice stealer to regain your voice.]
A bit late, isn’t it?
Oh god, I’m going to die and I can’t even scream for help.
The fake-Addy shed its skin, and out of it stepped a perfect copy of me again.
“Oh Addy,” it said in a fearful tone, clasping its hands in front of its heart. “Addy, help me.”
Oh, you motherfucke—
I shot my bazooka, but only met squishy resistance. Pink mimic goop clogged the triggering mechanism and oozed out of each end. When did that happen?
I tossed it away, aimed my shotgun with one good hand—
The magazine was missing. A tiny mimic carrying it on top of its body skittered off and away. In the split second it took to aim both weapons, it had stepped in close enough that I could smell it. It even smelled like me after a long day of blowing up mimics. A perfect copy to trick and kill Addy with.
I had one Prickler in my hands. No time to reload. Too close to blow it up. It could kill me easily before I could kill it. Its arm was already growing into a sword. This was definitely the real one.
A spider mine jumped past the barrier, aiming once again for its face. The mimic cut it in half before it could even explode. It also cut the next thing flying towards its face. My last potion bottle shattered, spilling its contents liberally across and inside fake-Samantha’s mouth. The potion of blindness.
Twice-twice you idiot! Get dunked on by your own strategy!
It staggered back, voice crackling, warbling, chirping in annoyance. Before I could reload my big gun, it burst into a dozen tentacle limbs, each grasping in every direction I could have possibly moved in.
One. Moment. Please.
Time turned lazy. One octopus tentacle uncoiled in the rough direction of my head. Slowly, steadily, I ordered my head to duck, then watched it follow the order with a tortuous delay. I was faster than the Ur-mimic, faster than near anything inside the Creektin dome, and now I had the means with which to exploit that speed to its fullest.
The tentacle adjusted much later. It was following the change of pressure in the air. I jerked back from it, and a second, and a third. Another missed my chest by a hair. Another found its brother, twisting into knots.
I would have loved to say that I dodged them all. But I was also on my last leg, literally, as the one I’d been stabbed through buckled. Soon enough, I was pressed against the wall, the mimic taking my form again except this time with even more arms.
Time turned normal again. The pressure of hand-tentacles around my neck turned to stone.
There goes that plan. God, I hope Addy isn’t too mad at me.
The sword-arm raised and fell.
+++
I can’t walk another step, Addy thought as she stumbled over a loose piece of industrial debris for the umpteenth time.
Her body ached and burned. Her one good arm no longer felt good, or like an arm, and more like a limp pool noodle made of lead. It reminded her of when mentor Irina trained her to the absolute limit of her endurance.
Do you want to swing your sword? Or do you want to drop it?
Addy only ever gave the same answer: “I want to swing my sword.”
Then Pick. It. Up.
In the present, she gripped an upgraded Hocchi’s grip more tightly. She wasn’t dropping anything this time.
Still, the damn steel factory was large and confusing. Even with the associates’ help, she’d only just staggered into the right factory floor through her haze.
<
“Careful. I knew a guy named careful. It’s his middle name.” Addy paused. “He died in a car crash. On his sofa. It raced right into his living room. He had a heartattack. I… don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
<
What data? She’s been a Custodian for two days. That’s not… ugh, there’s a word for that. It’s not statistical enough.
Addy snorted blood out of her nose when she noticed a four-legged mine walking across the rubble. It was walking in a large circle when Addy snatched it off the ground. Its mechanical limbs struggled to get free in vein.
And where exactly are you going? What’s the hurry?
Addy placed it back on the ground. The mine took off at speed and she hobbled after it. It poised itself on top of a piece of fallen roof, then launched forward, disappearing into thin air.
There, suspended in the air was a familiar spidery backpack. It moved left. It moved right. Addy tracked it with the gaze of a cat following a laser pointer until suddenly, it went completely still.
Swing your sword.
Addy raised her sword and cut a handsbreadth above where she estimated the owner’s head was.
It caught on something solid mid-air. She tugged, and the thing half stumbled outside.
It was Samantha, surprise on her face, the katana-long sword stuck solidly in her torso. Samantha stared her dead in the eyes. A dark black trickle ran down her blade.
“Addy, hel—”
“Hocchi: Fire.”
The Ur-mimic went up in blue flames.
+++
Oh my fucking god Addy thank god you that was perfect holy shit.
The spider-mine plan worked, but in the most unexpected way. With how screwed I was, the only alternative I had was blowing myself up with overcharged battery packs again.
Glad it didn’t come down to that.
[You have assisted in killing: 6kg Voicestealer mimic x1]
[Soulcoins: 69->119]
“Finally,” I croaked after swallowing the gaseous form of my voice. “You did it. We did it.”
“Hold on,” she said, turning the flames lighting up the mimic from inside up a notch.
Fake-Samantha flailed and screeched. Slowly, her movements slowed down, then ceased entirely. Her features melted and charred. Watching myself burn to death was not fun, even if it was just a fake. Within seconds, most of it dissolved into a goopy puddle.
“A body double,” Addy scoffed. “Bit of a solid one.”
“It… wasn’t the real one?” I blinked, feeling hollow.
“It had to sacrifice an arm and a leg to make one like this.” Addy brushed the carbonized mimic remains off of her sword. “The Ur-mimic’s hurt. It’ll need some time to recuperate.”
All that effort, and it wasn’t even the real one. “I-I thought I had it. It wasn’t an illusion, it was right there.”
“Tell me about it.” Addy sighed. “I didn’t catch the bastard in two years of dedicated hunting. You won’t catch it in two days. You probably killed a third of its biomass. You did great.”
I pulled my knees under my chin and wrapped my hands around myself. “God I hate mimics. I hate them so much.”
“It’s still stuck in the dome. Doesn’t matter where it runs off to, we’ll atomize it the moment the hostages are all free,” Addy muttered before collapsing onto the floor in a tired heap. The ground shuddered. Somewhere in the distance, a piece of ceiling collapsed.
I stared at Addy accusingly.
“... that wasn’t me.”
Another tremor shook the ground. A crack appeared in the concrete floor below.
“I really hope you have all the hostages,” Addy said.
“Still missing one.” I shot to my feet, only to fall over yet again. My hamstrings weren’t cut, but something had gotten awfully close at some point. “Addy, I need to find Becca.”
“Who?”
“A friend. The mimic turned into her. She was in Elise’s car when they left Tanya behind. I think the ur-mimic drove off with her since Elise died early during the convergence event. Becca must’ve been one of the first people to be abducted.”
“Nearly six days ago. She’s probably dead then,” Addy said darkly.
“A magical girl never leaves a friend behind.”
“We’re not magical girls,” Addy groaned.
“Well, we can try our best.” I gave her a smile. “Can you sniff her out?”
Addy shot me a sideways glance. “If you can carry me.”
“Deal.”
Rainbow-light enveloped her massive frame, shrinking her down into a fuzzy Tanuki form. I picked her up, securely cradling her under my two good right arms. She was pleasantly portable.
Another piece of ceiling collapsed somewhere in the distance. Addy sniffed, then pointed her snout to the left.
C’mon Becca. Please be around here somewhere. You’re stronger than some stupid mimic. I know you can fight it.
Please.
+++
On a confused Monday morning, one day after the invaders took hold of space and spewed their progeny down unto earth, Rebecca woke up in a place with no sound, no air, and only dim light filtered through a thick jelly hue.
Did Tanya at least get away? was her first thought.
She’d seen the shifting, coral-skinned thing as it stabbed Elise in the back. A witness to a crime most monstrous. And witnesses had to be disposed of.
It was dark and damp wherever she was, and the jelly was in her lungs, no space to breathe, no space to move. Claustrophobic. Asphyxiating. It reminded her of home, in a twisted way. There was no space between the trash her parents hoarded like treasure either. Her father had locked her in the basement before, right next to an old oil heater that was one leaky pipe away from flooding her home in odorless, tasteless gas. It was only the second most traumatic thing he’d done after her mother had overdosed on cough drops.
“I only gotta put up with your shit until you're eighteen, then you’re out,” he’d said. “Two more years. You better think about how much of that time you want to be sleeping on cardboard the next time you say ‘no’ to me. Be a good girl, Rebecca.”
Some people didn’t deserve to become parents. Sadly, procreation was a lot easier. The result was a little ball of anger called Rebecca.
Air. I need air!
“Ayurrr?” A voice like a shower of gravel made her pause. “Ayur. Errr.”
I can’t breathe.
“Breathe. Know breathe.”
Suddenly, her mouth was free to gulp down air. She was still terrified, but less due to suffocation and more about why she was suspended in a pinkish egg… thing. Maybe the voice knew more, though she was not going to trust what it said. It didn’t feel benevolent.
“H-hello?” Rebecca’s voice echoed uncomfortably. “If you’re reading my thoughts you better have the fucking decency to introduce yourself.”
“Ask. Kwestion. Answer.”
She took a moment to parse the grating noise.
“Answer questions? You wanted me to answer you?”
A ripple went out through her egg. She tried moving her left hand. It was firmly stuck, like the rest of her.
“And if I don’t?”
The breathing tube slowly squeezed shut.
“No answer, no Errr.”
That established the basics of her relationship with this… thing.
Motherfucker. You piece of shit. I’ll claw your eyes out and use your empty sockets as a beaker for titrating hydrochloric acid. I’ll eat you out from the inside until, until…
Quietly, while barely thinking of it, an idea came to her.
“Sure. I’ll answer your questions. I’m a good girl after all.”
“What s????????????a???????x?????????????u?????????m???? ?”
Rebecca squinted. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
There was a twinge of panic as the airway contracted.
“What s????????????a???????x?????????????u?????????m???? ?” It demanded again, driving something invisible into her mind, bombarding her with pictures of a rocky shore, of pebbles in the prairie, of gravel and roads and houses.
And with that came snippets of stranger things. Towering spires on a pink planet reaching for pink skies. Body plans. An ecosystem made of a single creature constantly predating itself, again and again, changing and morphing into bizarre and more bizarre forms unto infinity. It had nothing left to do. It was perfection, rather, it thought it was. And when presented with a world as green and brown and blue as this one, that could only be taken as an insult.
The information was enough of a shock that she forgot to answer long enough that the tube closed tight again.
“S-stone? You mean stone! Yeah, I can tell you all about stone!”
The pressure to her air vent receded ever so slightly. She gulped down a big breath of air, buying precious seconds of time.
“Stone is a hard material. It’s good for building buildings — not for building animals though. It’s too heavy. We build animals out of glass.”
A confused ripple bounced across her egg. If this thing was anything like the average language learning model, then enough bad information could poison the entire well for years.
“Why stone? Why much?” A handful of pictures of skylines and roads entered her mind. How was it doing this?
Focus on the question. Why is there so much stone in our cities?
“Oh, that. Of course, how could I forget. Because it’s emergency food.” She gave her best fake-happy smile. “Humans love eating food ever since the dinosaur age. It’s because heavy things are very nutritious. You can bite down on the softer ones like hard candy, but most people just drink sand. Honestly, stone is so useful, I wouldn’t know what to do without it.”
“Eat… stone?”
“I don’t. I’m allergic, thank you.”
“... welcome?”
There was a pause before all of a sudden the air tube contracted entirely. Rebecca gasped, but it was no use. Darkness crept in at the edge of her mind.
“Bad answer. Will cross-reference. No answer, no errr, but no errr, no answer never. Better punishment.”
There was a blinding pain as something twisted and detached along her shoulder. Rebecca tried to bite back a scream, but nobody would have heard her anyways, trapped in the mass of dark rubbery goo. She tried to crane her neck. Her entire arm was gone, and something pink had taken its place.
She forced her eyes closed.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. I’m just a bitch who drags everyone down with me. At least now I can use that for a good cause.
The voice left. Days passed. It could have been weeks or month, for all she knew, stuck in her sensory deprivation chamber as she was. The voice came back on occasion. The questions and answers repeated, always slightly different, always growing in complexity.
What is a tree, what is a bird, what is a mother, what is a gun? Why do trees not move, why are birds so dumb, can you eat a mother, can you eat a gun? What’s the biggest thing in the world, what's the smallest, how big is an atom, what’s a family, a flock, a country, what is beauty, what is desire, what is pain?
“What is a vvvar?”
“A war is a disagreement fought through any means available,” Rebecca tiredly intoned. Even the voice wasn’t hers anymore, her voicebox replaced with some pink facsimile of a human organ. “Humans are damn good at war. We kill for fun, we kill for no reason at all, and we’re going to kill you next. We’re cruel motherfuckers, you hear me? You landed on the wrong planet you fucks!”
“Is that whole answer?” It asked calmly.
“Fuck you!” She damn near screeched it, tearing against her restraints. They always gave an inch before the goo hardened and clamped down on her. “Kill me or set me free, do what you’re here to do, but get me out of this eternal prison!”
Because any more and I think I’ll go insane. Or maybe I already am? Did I even make a difference? I think I did, just… not in the way I wanted to. It’s a lot more articulate now.
Her thoughts were lost among the viscous liquid.
“I take your eye now. Next time, I take your brain. Then you will be dead, or mine. Either or, I win this vvvar.”
And then it left. And no matter what Rebecca did, how much she struggled and screamed, nothing changed. Her one remaining eye was red and empty of all tears.
I just wanted to live a normal life. Sorry Mom. Sorry Sam, really. Elise, Tanya, fuck you for leaving me behind.
“Addy, you were right, there really is something here.”
And now she was hearing voices too. If she closed her eye, she could almost imagine Sam in all her gangly glory. Long legs, focused eyes, and a smile like uncaring sunshine—
Boom!
“Freaking hidden behind five inches of concrete, who’d’ve thought there’d be a secret chamber here?” A little raccoon-thing poked its head in through a smoking hole in a wall… above her?
Oh, I’m hanging from the ceiling. The blood rushing to my brain should’ve killed me days ago. Then again, what exactly was I expecting? I’m not even human anymore.
The raccoon-thing was carefully followed by a tall person with too many arms. “Oh god, I think that’s her.”
“S-Sam?” Rebecca slurred with a mouth that didn’t belong to her, with a voice that was foreign.
Don’t look at me. I’m disgusting.
“What is a Sam?”
Her blood froze in her veins. The voice was in her head.
“Can a Sam be eaten?” She could feel her skin changing, shifting into spikes and serrated blades.
“No.” Yes. “Not in that way.”
“Will eating a Sam kill it?”
“We should eat a Sam. We should eat it slow. And then we will understand. And then we will win this war. And then, all will be good.”