I tucked my body lower and pumped my legs harder and harder until they cramped—but I pushed through the pain, slashing up and twisting to the side as tails crashed down on me. My blade carved through them until they hit bone.
They vanished into my inventory with a mental tug, and I stepped forward, trying to maintain momentum.
With a running leap, I vaulted over a tail angling for me and twisted through two descending whips, arriving in front of the monster's face. I looked deep into its six, blood-red eyes—and they bored into me, brimming with pure malice.
My blades flashed into my open palms as I surged forward, cranking Overdrive as I stabbed—blades vibrating with Cursed Energy.
The fox's jaw snapped open, and it roared.
The air burst apart. The world screamed. A wall of pressure and cursed energy slammed into me.
I crossed my hands immediately.
Inverse buckled—spiderweb cracks erupted from my feet as the technique began to rattle. Step by step, I was pushed back, but I endured.
Inverse had seen me through grenade explosions and sniper bullets. It could stand a wave of energy.
And it did. Until it didn't.
My blade shattered, the weakest link of my technique faltering--my new extension cloak. Fragments of metal pinged off me, rolling off Inverse just as the Fox's technique redoubled.
Inverse folded with an inaudible crack, and the backlash sent lacerations and bruises running up and down my body. The air pressure hit me a second later, ripping me off my feet and hurling me hundreds of feet backward.
I skipped over desert sand—each new bump, a fresh bruise.
I blacked out mid-air and woke up with the final impact—most of my body broken, my skin peeled raw, and a headache so intense it hurt to blink.
Yet, I had to think. Move. Fight.
The ground shook rhythmically, and behind me, I could feel a great figure approaching. The Fox loomed, ready to finish the job.
I gasped, wet and raw, and with a shaky psyche, tried to smash two streams of positive energy together.
It slipped away from me—the quantities not quite right.
"Damn it!" I spat blood.
Again, I tried. It fractured.
Son of a---
I didn't try a third time.
I turned to my Innate Technique instead.
Inverse sheathed me just before something slammed into me.
The weight of it felt like what I imagined a bus crashing into Inverse would feel like, but my technique, to my utter fucking delight, didn't shatter this time.
It held strong, though I was still swept backwards several feet.
Inverse Lv 5.
I breathed a small sigh of relief—but I wasn't out of the woods yet, far from it.
Inverse and RCT couldn't be active at the same time. I just wasn't there yet.
Which meant I had to stop one to do the other, and waiting it out wasn't an option either.
With a rattling breath, I pushed off the dirt with one hand and looked behind me.
The Cursed Spirit was still there, its Cursed Energy slightly deminished, but a potent threat nonetheless. Its nine tails swayed in the wind, eyes still locked on me.
I expected it to move, attack, even talk?
But it just stood there. Waiting.
"They said you'd be good," a voice said. It belonged to a woman, stepping into view from between the Fox's legs.
She wore a plain shirt, a short flowy skirt, boots, and knee-high socks. She had a pendant around her neck and her hair done up in a bun.
"They're not exactly wrong. Your technique is like nothing I've ever seen."
She had a thick British accent, and the Curse Energy pouring off her made Shelim seem like an amateur. It felt endless.
I swallowed.
I couldn't take her in a straight fight, but I wasn't about to surrender either. I lowered Inverse so that I could fully focus on Reversed Curse Technique. It was risky leaving myself open like this, but it was the only way I could heal myself.
And it worked.
Negative and negative energy smashed into each other, creating overwhelming positive energy that I funneled into my brain and throat first, then the rest of me.
My energy drained like a sieve.
"Kathy is Grade 1. Very few sorcerers can withstand her attacks."
"You're the girl that shackled Black Mask, aren't you?"
"And you're the wanker who killed him. It took us months to find a replacement."
"What's your technique called?" she asked.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
She smirked. "Curse Creation. Lets me create beasties out of Curse Energy. The more time I spend working on a beasty, the stronger they turn out. Kathy here took me two months."
"I don't suppose you'll tell me how to kill her?" I coughed out.
She smiled. "I told you mine. It's your turn."
"Inverse. It's conceptual. It operates on extremes. It either makes me so solid I can shrug off most attacks—or it lets me make objects so faint, they vanish from reality." Obviously, I lied. Inverse strength lay in its mystery; I wasn't going to give up my only advantage to gain the boost in energy output, revealing my own hand would've brought. That particular binding vow was reserved for people with powerful techniques with no obvious weaknesses.
"I'm guessing only you can call them back."
"You're a quick study," I said.
"I'm really not," she said, "and given your conversation with our friend in Blüdhaven, you can guess why I'm here."
"You want me in the fold," I grunted, spinning around to look at her while conveniently hiding my free hand—and speed-dialing Artemis.
I didn't hold out much hope that the Justice League would show up in the nick of time, but I wouldn't let pride stop me from exploring every option.
While the League was Plan B, Plan A was to heal and fight again—this time with Venom and a few binding vows.
"You can understand why I'd be reluctant, seeing as your little murder coven killed my dad."
She raised a brow. "You know about that? Did Shelim talk?"
"My father wasn't a complete deadbeat after all. He mailed me a book. Taught me a lot. Showed me the truth about the woman you call Artisan. He made her what she was—and she killed him for it."
"Your father was a coward," she said sharply. "He sat back and watched when he could've taken action. Changed the world. Healed millions. Birthed a utopia. But he let his heart rule him. He was afraid to break a few eggs."
I blinked. "By eggs you mean human subjects. You do realize how insane you sound?"
"Don't play coy with me," she said. "I've looked into you. I've seen your work. Black Mask. The faceless men you've put down on your little quest to escape us. You're not as outraged as you pretend to be. You also think some of them are worthless."
"Worthless, no. Evil, yes. There's no justifying experimenting on children—no matter how many times you turn it over in your head." I fixed her with an intractable glare. "You're evil. Own it. It's an insult to pretend otherwise."
"Things are that simplistic in your world, aren't they?"
She looked at me with pity and tilted her head.
"How do you think birth control was invented? Cancer medication? Medicine for any major human malady?
Experimentation. Sacrifice. This planet has been on a knife's edge for centuries. We're lucky a metahuman or alien hasn't conquered us yet. Everybody should be special. Or no one should be. That is what we fight for.
That is why you should join us."
Her expression softened. It was tender, almost gentle, and she reached out, open-palmed.
"No one has to suffer the way your friend did."
I'd expected a supervillain monologue. Some bullshit way to handwave the destruction they planned to wreak. But I never expected it to make some modicum of sense.
What I'd seen in the vision with the Artisan was the plan laid raw—from my dead father's perspective.
Wanton destruction. Chaos. A desire to tear down the old system so that humanity could evolve.
Grow stronger. Gain the strength to stand up to their metahuman counterparts and the universe at large.
The problem with it?
It was horribly inefficient—and would come at the cost of most of Earth's population. Most cities wouldn't survive the emergence of multiple Special Grade Curses and sorcerers.
And while the little hero-villain balance we had now was held together by duct tape and unspoken threats from Superman and the other heavy hitters in the League, it wasn't broken either.
The good guys were just holding back—because of some warped sense of morality. And that's going to be the end of us.
The good guys didn't have the answers, but neither did she.
Read ahead on Patreon.com/artandcreativewriting.