Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users

Elowen closed her eyes and kept breathing. The tree answered again. The canopy folded over her like a cloak.

From the edge of her hearing came the sound of birds she had never seen and wind in leaves that had never grown in any field on that world.

These were not illusions, and Lilith's reflections could not catch them. They were memories the arena held—of life that had once moved through it when it was a branch of something greater.

Elowen borrowed them, not as weapons but as weight. Weight is steady. Weight is real. Weight makes lies slide off.

The first line of the army struck and vanished into the roots. The second line cut upward and split, their blades grazing bark and sparking light.

The third line kicked off the mirror-sky and dove. They met a branch that should not have fit where it fit, a branch that curved through five angles at once and still held its shape.

The branch broke against it like waves breaking on a cliff.

Lilith did not grimace. She rolled one shoulder and lifted her hand. The mirrors did not fall this time.

They widened and deepened until they held not an army but lives. There stood Elowen and her daughters at a kitchen table in softer clothes, steam rising from cups and laughter riding over it.

The next mirror showed Ethan training alone, knuckles bleeding, mouth set, and the small way he winced when he wrapped his hands with too much care—because he did not want anyone to notice the pain.

Another showed the twins arguing in a hallway, not a fight but an old rhythm; Everly's chin tilted up, Evelyn's hands on her hips.

And then the mirrors changed. In one, Elowen watched that kitchen go cold. In another, Ethan fell and did not rise. In a third, no footsteps followed the twins down the hall.

"Layered reality," Lilith said, softer now. "You can anchor against mirrors that tell you you are weak. Can you anchor against mirrors that show you what you want?"

Elowen looked, not away but straight through. Her fingers curled once. The tree behind her grew even larger.

It did not crash into those scenes. It grew past them. Leaves opened above the mirrors and blocked their light as if placing a gentle hand over a lamp.

The roots did not strike; they pushed the frames to the edges and kept pushing until all that glass sat outside the fight like curiosity peeking in through a window.

"You made a mistake," Elowen said. She did not raise her voice. "You think my wants are soft."

For the first time, Lilith let out a breath that sounded like work. Not weakness, not strain, but effort noticed. "You are not made of soft things," she allowed.

"Fine. I will change the ground."

She snapped. The platform is split into a dozen platforms with almost no space between them.

Some tilted. Some rotated. Some locked in place for a breath, then jumped. Roots slid to follow.

The tree adjusted with them. The army did not stumble; it flowed. Lilith stepped across gaps as if she had summoned them for a dance floor and not as a weapon, her cloak of light and shadow draping and lifting with each shift.

Elowen dragged the mass back to one piece. She did not do it forcefully. She did it by deciding where the center was and insisting.

The platforms drifted, bumped, and then slid back into a plate that matched the size of the tree's trunk. The arena groaned.

The rivers whipped around, their curves tighter now. The sky flickered, mirrors dimming and brightening like eyes struggling to stay open.

"You're stubborn," Lilith said, and there was a small laugh in it. "I always liked that about you."

"And you are impossible," Elowen said, and that held a thin thread of warmth, a line pulled tight across years. "I always enjoyed that you never stop trying."

The army's lines met the ring of roots that surrounded Elowen like a wall and began to climb. Leaves blackened where illusion touched them.

Bark smoked. Branches cracked, fell, and regrew before they touched the ground. With every step the soldiers took, their outlines sharpened.

They felt less like tricks and more like hands. Lilith was not only painting pictures. She was cutting the arena and using the scraps as bodies.

Elowen shifted tactics. She sent not a wave but a weave. Vines laced through the army, not to crush but to bind.

Knots formed around ankles, wrists, and throats; they were not choking; they were only holding. A hush touched the space.

Those who were bound began to forget what they were supposed to be. Reflection blurred. Blade hands became open hands.

Lilith snapped again, and those hands closed, yanked free, and regained their shape, but the pause had cost her a layer of rhythm. It was small. It mattered.

"Even you must get tired of patience," Lilith said. She stepped across another gap, and three more versions of her split away and ran along the underside of the platform. "Come on. Hit me properly."

"I am hitting you properly," Elowen said. She lifted her arm level with her chest. The rivers around the trunk leaped like trained creatures and wrapped that arm all the way to the elbow.

The glow poured through her skin and turned her veins to light. She tapped her heel and the lattice throbbed. "You favor speed. I favor depth. Our proper looks different."

"Then let us both be proper," Lilith answered.

She clapped once. The mirrors around the arena's edge threw out lines of light that spun themselves into standards, flags that carried no symbol until they began to move.

As they moved, images ran along the cloth—faces from cities, old battles, a council chamber with chairs still warm, an office with a world map traced in red.

The standards stabbed themselves into the platform. Soldiers rallied to them and became clearer again, less shadow and more shape.

The army's steps aligned. Drums that were not there beat in the air.