"How long has it been now?" I asked with annoyance as I paced back and forth.
"Five more minutes since the last time you asked," Katye retorted as she lounged back on the stone couch that she had created.
I growled with annoyance, but Katye just chuckled since she knew that I would not do anything. Echo and Raven had started their trials over an hour ago and I was growing impatient. My own trial had been about an hour and a half and, while our reserves were comparable to that time, neither of them could match my strength with elemental spells back then.
"How can you be so relaxed?" I snapped.
"Because worrying gives you wrinkles," she retorted with a smirk. "There is nothing that we can do now other than have faith in them, like they have done for us. We listened to Asad's warning and made what gear we could in the time frame that we had. Honestly, they have a better chance than we did."
I huffed but did not respond. I knew she was right, but I could not help but think of how things could go. The Lesser Spirits could inflict Yin-poisoning with a simple touch, and they would be all but invisible in the beginning. After they fought off the masses and were tired, that was when they would have to face off against Asad's chosen champion.
Another ten minutes later, Echo stumbled out of Yin Realm, looking far paler than normal. Before Katye could get up, I teleported in front of Echo and caught her, feeling her ice-cold skin. It was easy to guess that she had Yin poisoning, and while her body was slowly processing the energy, I could remove the negative effects much quicker.
"Echo, are you okay?" Katye asked as I carefully laid her out on the stone platform that we had made before.
"C-c-cold, just c-c-cold," Echo chattered.
I channeled my healing spell into her which rapidly returned her color and stopped her shivering. She relaxed against Katye's hand while one of her hands grabbed at my arm. It was a truly vulnerable moment for Echo, and as touching as it was, it made me worry about Raven even more. Echo was a fighter, but Raven...
Before I could finish the thought, Raven fell out Yin Realm with blood dripping from her eyes. She was alive, but her caramel skin was almost a translucent white color showing all of her veins which were black from the poisoning. Katye was the one who caught her since I was still healing Echo, but the tough woman pushed me away when she saw my concern. I could only give a silent thanks to Echo as I turned and started healing Raven, who had already passed out from the strain.
Neither of them suffered any permanent damage and were able to go back to work the next day, though Raven took a little longer to recover. Aside from the Shadow Skin and Void Walk spells that came with every first trial, Raven got the spell Dark Vision, while Echo received the spell Shadow Arrow for their unique spells. Honestly, it was clear that Echo gained more than Raven which made me question whether it was worth it for her to continue down this road, but I also could not stop her if she wanted to.
After we returned to the Voyager and things went back to normal, Janeway took me up on the offer of magic torpedoes, much to my amusement. There was just something about combining sci-fi and fantasy into some overpowered and unnatural weapon that made me want to snicker every time that I thought about it. Most were the EMP style, called the V-1, since they were designed to disable rather than destroy, but Tuvok requested a stock of ten for both the V-2 and V-3, the ripping and energy blast ones, after being surprised about the power that each of them contained.
A week had passed since Raven and Echo had become Naru Darc like Katye and I, so things seemed to be going well. I was on the Bridge while Neelix directed us to a planet that he knew from his trading days, but unfortunately, he had not visited here in years, more specifically, twenty as it had been hit by a solar flare nineteen years ago. Instantly, I recognized the episode, but what made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, was when I realized that the world around me had frozen.
"An interesting episode, no? An artificial intelligence that is a manifestation of fear, which is holding people hostage in order for it to exist... the most primal of all instincts, the desire to live," a voice identical to my own said.
"Mimic," I said as I stood up before I had even seen her.
"How have you been, Rebecca? I've noted you testing my seal, both consciously and unconsciously," she asked.
"Oh, peachy... just facing the Q, having to send off my loved ones off to Asad's domain, and a looming Vidiian conflict unlike anything I have ever faced before hanging over my head," I retorted with annoyance as I stared at a copy of myself who was walking around the railing towards me.
"Challenges are fun, no? How else do you know what you are made of?" Mimic chuckled.
"If I am the one to take the risk, perhaps, but not when the ones I care about are at risk," I growled, knowing that she was toying with me.
"Oh? So, only if you are the one taking the risk, you don't mind the challenge?" she asked with a threatening smile. "I came to recommend that you have Janeway send in Raven and Echo because they had something that they could learn, but with some risk, of course, yet now... I have a new proposal. I never did get the chance to do a true Demon Heart trial on you since you had already passed Istar's restrictions of the 'universe'. Face your fear under my control, and should your mind not break, I will grant you another Ouroboros Pendant, so that both of your women can be protected within Istar's Meta-verse."
Nothing like dangling a carrot in front of a mule. We had the equivalent of a second life sitting in our storage, unused, because neither Katye nor I would vote against Raven or Echo. No one wanted to make that choice of who was worth saving over the other, and here came Mimic with a simple solution if I played into her hand.
"And if you do 'break' me?" I asked.
"Well, my seal will hold for a time," she chuckled, but as I stared blankly at her for a few minutes, she sighed. "Fine, I'll warn Katye of the danger after you start the trial, but that means you will be unconscious during the duration of your trial instead of being separated from the timeline. Plenty of time for your lovers to get angry at you for not asking their permission."
My eyebrow twitched with annoyance, but it did not matter that she was right. Raven, Katye, and Echo would all be angry if I agreed to this crazy trial without consulting them, but I knew this offer was just for this moment. Angry or not, I would not, could not, let the chance of protecting both of them slip past me.
"Fuck it, I'll deal with the bitch out later," I said as I turned my artificial fingers into a blade and then scratched a simple warning into the palm of my hand, saying, "Don't enter pods."
"I should heal that," Mimic chuckled.
"This is supposed to be between me and you, right? The warning is more for Janeway and her crew than my group," I retorted.
"Fair enough," she agreed and held out a hand towards me.
I looked at her hand for a moment, knowing that there was no going back once I touched it. Katye had passed her Demon Heart trial, but when she woke up, she practically ran away from me before she could get herself back under control. Despite asking a few times what had happened, she never told me what she had faced. My own had been made easy because I had already awoken my Dusa form, but I had seen visions of two close people whose deaths I still felt personally responsible for, despite accepting the loss and mistake.
In the end, it did not matter what she would throw at me. I wanted to protect the three of them, and I needed to grow as well. While Mimic was not my favorite person, I knew that she was here to help me. I took her hand then felt my body collapse as darkness claimed my mind and the world resumed...
I was standing in a familiar room... the Command Center of Mount Weather, watching the Mountain Men drill for bone marrow out of my friend. Lincoln was behind me with his hand on my shoulder as I watched Monty silently scream in pain. Suddenly, I knew that something terrible was going to happen and I started moving before I even knew what I was doing.
Emerson rushed into the room with an automatic rifle, but he was startled by me charging at him though he recovered quickly. He pointed the gun at me, but before he could squeeze the trigger, I sent a blast of air at his side which knocked the barrel to the side, making him miss me. I closed the distance between us and overpowered his hold on the gun then used it to bash him over the head with the stock.
He collapsed to the ground, and I shouldered the gun, ready to execute him, when a strong hand stopped me. It was Lincoln, but... but this was when he died. I turned my head to see Kane kneeling by someone with Bellamy holding the person's hand. With a chilling realization, I stumbled a few feet closer and saw Raven with red blood staining her lips and a hole in her chest.
Black flames ignited all over my body as I collapsed to my knees and repeated, "Not like this... not like this!"
Then my memories clicked into place. This was not how things had happened. Everything was a part of my Demon Heart trial. As soon as I realized the fact, the world grew black once again and my memories were clouded again...
Standing in front of me, there was a mountain of a man in full armor with a deranged smile on his face. Streaks of gray ran through his wild, red hair that hung down past his shoulders, yet he did not give off the feeling of someone past his prime. He was like a rabid wolf that still had a shred of sanity holding back the vicious beast.
Iseto, the Blodripa. He had been a unique creation of the 'universe' to balance out the changes that Katye and I had made throughout our short time in 'The 100', who had the power to brainwash the masses and use a berserker rage of sorts. We were standing in the Parthenon in the ruins of Nashville which meant that this was when... A gunshot rang out, followed by a second one quickly after. I touched my chest, expecting that I had been shot, but I was uninjured and then the third shot was fired. I turned around and was horrified as Echo and Luna had been shot in the head and Raven had just executed herself.
"Now tell me how important it is to not take that revenge," Iseto mocked.
All three were dead before they hit the ground, neither Echo nor Luna had expected the sudden attack by the possessed Raven. I just stood there blankly trying to process what I was seeing when my memories clicked into place. This was not real; this was just a test...
A powerful storm raged overhead, and the rain poured like a waterfall. A body in yellow robes laid dead not too far away and across from me was Artem, the axe-wielding Disciple, looking enraged. Behind him, there were two men, one in violet and the other in brown, and one woman who wore blue robes which signified their elements. Despite being in my Dusa form, my body ached from the combination attacks of the four though I had not taken any serious damage so far.
Before I could fully gain my bearings, Artem swung his axe horizontally, but despite dodging the blade itself, a crimson streak chased me. I was forced to teleport right before the energy band could hit me. I reappeared behind him, but also with my back to him. I spun on my heel and used my long tail like a heavy whip, swatting him to the side. Artem was thrown several feet away, yet before I could chase after him, I was struck by attacks of the other three. Electricity coursed through my body while stone bullets tore apart the membrane of my wings and water forced its way between my scales, stinging like hundreds of ants trying to bite through skin.
I let out a roar of pain and the storm above seemed to respond to me, despite not being connected to it at the moment. Half a dozen crimson bolts of lightning struck the ground around me and very close to my opponents, which injured all of them and gave me some breathing room. I took the chance to look over at Katye to see that she was having no easier time than I was.
The Yin-user had summoned a giant, fifteen-foot-tall alien spider creature made out of the blood of the victims of Sanctum. While it was similar to the Lord Spirits that Katye and I could summon, it was three to four times stronger than them. The giant spider did not rely only on its physical body to attack and could spit out globs of blood and Yin energy, similar to how Seluna could fire Yin arrows. Katye had taken a hit from one of these attacks which had forced her to the ground as it had damaged her two wings on her left side, but she was still deadly with her blades and incredible speed.
While transformed into her fairy Dusa form, her twin swords took on the look of scimitars that were no longer than her forearms. Aside from the Yin user and her monster, Katye was also facing the Fire user. Unlike me, she could not shrug off the blasts of fire despite the heavy rain weakening his attacks. She seemed reluctant to use her swords to block the attacks of the summoned monster, always dodging. The Yin and Fire users tried to stay away from her and pepper her with attacks, but she would occasionally teleport to one of their sides and counterattack.
But then it happened. A fireball flew at her face which she dispersed with a swing of her sword, but that meant she could not see the spider leg that chased behind it. The leg smashed heavily on her blade, breaking it, then it followed up with a thrust of another leg which impaled her at the stomach and lifted her into the air.
That was when something inside of me snapped. Silver clouds of mist erupted from my body as a bloodthirsty aura blanketed the large courtyard. I could feel my body changing, becoming more beast-like, as my long-suppressed rage broke free and filled me with a new strength.
With an inhuman roar, the silver clouds crackled with crimson electricity, responding to my Will. The Disciples within my Domain were all hit by a red bolt of lightning and only Artem remained on his feet, though he was stunned by the shock. I barely pushed off the ground before I was in front of him with my clawed hand stabbing through his chest. I barely noticed his death other than kicking him off my arm then charged at the black blood spider.
It knew no fear, so it met my charge by stabbing its two front legs at me. The Chaos Storm Clouds surrounding my body condensed into two giant arms that I used to grab the legs. I stopped its momentum and then pulled, ripping the legs off of it. Leaping into the air, the clouds changed again to take the shape of an arrow as lightning rippled through it before I released the attack.
The arrow hit the summoned creature and exploded on its back, throwing chunks in all different directions. I ignored it all though, sensing the spell energy collapse, and landed next to Katye. She was still alive but only barely. The Yin corruption had eaten away at the large hole in her gut and only her Dusa form was keeping her conscious. I started trying to heal her, but I could instantly tell that it was too much for me to save her life.
"My fight is over, ai hodnes (my love)," Katye said weakly as she placed her hand over mine.
"No, I refuse to lose you again," I growled with a strange echo to my voice.
I kept channeling my healing spell into her body and, subconsciously, started using my Chaos mana to supplement the strength that I needed. Without noticing, my scales started changing from stormy gray to seafoam green, but it was working. The Yin poison was being dissolved as her skin began to knit itself back together… but then she started to scream in pain.
Her life was no longer in danger, so I stopped healing, yet she continued to scream. Her veins glowed with a seafoam green light as the Chaos mana ran wild inside of her, consuming her natural mana. As the Fairy Queen of the Arcana, her power was directly rooted to Order, the opposite of my affinity. By tapping into my Chaos mana to heal her, my power was now corrupting her worse than the Yin poison even if it would not kill her.
Her flawless porcelain white skin was quickly turning an ashen red. Her violet hair was being dyed black and the lime green crown of daisies on her brow turned a dark shade of blood red as did the ivy leaves that covered her body. The worst was when the whites of her eyes became pitch black while her pupils changed to white, a haunting sight when you met those eyes.
The corruption did not stop with the change of her appearance as her personality did as well. Gone was the calm, caring, logical woman who could match my stubbornness and settle me down with a simple touch. What replaced her was a loyal servant who could be kind or cruel to anyone without warning or reason. She was no longer the woman who I fell in love with, just a shell of her, a constant reminder of what I had done...
I had lost myself in that vision, so I was lost in the next and the next and the next... Each one built on the next until I had warped Raven, Echo, even members of the Voyager crew, and Istar. Anytime that Death loomed for someone I held dear, my Chaos could preserve them, but was it truly them?
I had no idea how long it had been. Ten years, a hundred, a thousand, a million, even a billion years it could have been. The Endless Firmament had long been corrupted by my influence, and as the Embodiment of Chaos, nothing could resist my authority over this universe. Absolute power was absolutely empty. I did not have loved ones, only slaves that would mindlessly agree to whatever I desired, yet I desired nothing but the warmth of their embrace.
"Now you see why I ripped out my Soul," a rumble of a voice said from behind me.
I turned around to face a dragon that was no less than a thousand miles long. The seafoam green scales with a violet sheen and the silver eyes with diamond pupils were familiar to me. This was Dystina, my past self, if only for a few moments before she tore out her Soul and gave it to Istar for safe keeping, thereby creating 'me'.
"Our future is rather bleak, no?" I asked with morbid amusement.
"It could be... Katye is growing at a decent rate and Alkatyenia has had a long time to advance while we were sealed, but yes, this bleak future is still our most likely path," the dragon sighed.
I sighed as well and looked out at the Chaos corrupted world that I was on. It had been a barren rock when I first settled here, no longer able to stand the sight of the shells that I had created, but my natural aura had warped this place too. Storms of fire, acid, and even snow could rain from the same cloud. Twisted plants had taken root, and even stranger beasts had sprung to life from the Chaos.
"Is there any point in struggling? With all of your experience and strength, you still abandoned the fight against the Chaos within us," I asked, turning back to the dragon.
"I did, but for all of my strength and experience, I had already lost the most important thing to me: a reason to live. You understand that now. The greatest weapon to combat and tame the Chaos within us, is simply a reason to fight."
"But what if I do the same thing again? Corrupting them with our Chaos? If I see them dying, how do I stop myself from trying to save them and turn them into shells?"
"We are Chaos. We can make the impossible possible. If your Will is strong enough, you can do anything. Alkatyenia's ascension is needed to balance our Chaos, not control it. It is only your Will that can either shape the Chaos or be swayed by the Chaos should yours not be strong enough. Suwae could heal nearly any injury or poison, Helani could reserve Time to restore a life, Istar brought Alkatyenia's True Soul back to the Realm of the Living... Chaos is so dangerous because it influences every element, even Order. The more you know, the more you understand, the stronger your Will will become, and the more you can control 'what' you do with the Chaos inside of us."
I looked down at my seafoam scaled hands and tried to remember what I had looked like before. The scales began to flake off until my human hands were back, but there was no pain. With another thought, my body transformed back to my human form except now I had a pair of stormy gray horns that grew out of my temples and forehead which curled backwards along the curve of my head. There were a few blunted thorns that splintered off the horns which made it resemble a crown.
"Dragons pride themselves on their horns, so they are a permanent fixture now that you have accepted me," the dragon chuckled which rumbled like thunder.
I placed a hand against the snout of the massive dragon and smiled, saying, "Don't get me wrong. I will still curse you until the day that I die for the mess you pulled me into, but I've accepted a lot worse aspects of myself."
The dragon chuckled again as its body began to break down into motes of seafoam energy and replied, "Your strength is still pitiful, and you have so much to learn, but this is not the last we will meet. As long as you never give up, we can find the way."