Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users

For a moment, the platform looked like a city of low hills. Lilith ran up one ridge and came down the other side as if the change had been made for her.

Elowen stepped into the low place between, and the low place became a bowl. Roots like ribs rose around her.

Arrows of light struck the ribs and stuck there, quivering, then dissolved into sap.

"I can keep this up all night," Lilith said.

"So can I," Elowen said. "But you knew that before we began."

There was no more chatter for a while. The fight tightened again. Lilith's blade-horizon arced across the world in long, clean sweeps that cut and did not drag.

Elowen's spear-question rose and fell and rose again, never tired, never sloppy. Where blade and spear met, the arena screamed.

The scream rolled out past the seals and came back as pressure from the outside. Something ancient leaned in to listen. It did not speak. It only breathed.

Lilith felt it and ignored it. She split her veil into threads and wove them into nets that caught branches and pulled them sideways into knots that had more sides than geometry should allow.

Elowen felt the same pressure and ignored it. She turned the branch caught in the net into a root that grew heavier when pulled and lighter when left alone.

The net learned that new rule and sagged until its own weight made it fall.

Lilith tried words again. "He will walk into that exam and smile like nothing can surprise him."

Elowen did not take the bait. "He will walk into that exam and hold his promises."

"And you will be waiting outside the door," Lilith said.

"Yes," Elowen said.

"Good," Lilith said, and she meant it.

The mirrors started to cut for real. One broke open in the sky, and a long blade of glass slid down point-first. It hit the floor and went in up to the hilt.

The ground around it rippled like water when you drop a stone. The ripple turned roots on their sides and made rivers curve into tight spirals.

Elowen pressed her foot down and the ripple passed through her as a shiver and moved on without touching the trunk.

Lilith chuckled under her breath. "Stubborn."

"Rooted," Elowen corrected.

The army came back, not in ranks this time but as a storm of single fighters. A woman with a tambourine of mirrors rattled it once, and every rattle punched a hole in the air.

A man with a book read two lines, and the scene around him obeyed the grammar of those lines until the book shut.

A child with no weapon at all tilted their hea,d and the platform forgot gravity for three heartbeats.

The storm of fighters rushed and folded back, rushed and folded back, always changing, never stopping.

Elowen answered with an orchard. Trees grew in a ring, small compared to the life-tree, quick and low, every one a little different.

One tree drank light. One drank sound. One drank motion. One drank doubt. The storm ran through them and lost little pieces of itself.

The tambourine's rattle reached the orchard, and the sound died before it hit leaves. The book's grammar found new rules tucked under its own pages.

The child's tilt met the motion-drinking bark and fell still, confused and then laughing, and then ran on as if the stillness had been a game, which maybe it was.

Lilith smiled a little at the orchard. "I wondered if you would still use that trick."

"I keep good things," Elowen said.

The sealed world gave another warning, sharper this time. Wards flared at the rim like a ring of torches getting ready to darken if this continued.

Elowen's hair lifted on a wind that was all essence. Lilith's veil flamed along its edge and turned almost white. Neither slowed.

If anything, the sight of the wards made them both honest about why they were still here.

They needed to know, and there was no other place where they could know without burning something they could not repair.

"Last exchange," Lilith said, and her voice was almost gentle.

"For now," Elowen said.

They moved at the same time. Lilith packed every shard of sky into a single plane and bent it. It did not become a blade this time.

It became a door with no hinges, a hard page that could shut and lock and tell the world to stay inside the margin. She swung the page down, and it tried to close the arena.

Elowen took every ring of roots around her and twisted them into a single band. The band did not look heavy, but when it moved, the void sagged under it.

She raised it like a shield, and it met the closing page. Page struck the band. The impact did not explode. It hummed. The hum ran into bone and came back out as an ache.

The ache ran into memory and came back out as light. The light ran into the shadow and came back out as rain.

The rain fell without water. It fell as understanding. The arena did not know what to do with that, and so it screamed.

The scream was not from pain now. It was from too much truth in one place.

Cracks radiated in a star. The orchards shook. The army went to one knee because even illusions respect certain sounds.

The rivers folded against walls of thorns, the thorns bowed, and the rivers bowed back. Lilith bared her teeth.

Elowen's eyes went bright as moonlight on a lake. They would have gone again. Both had breath left. Both had will left.

Both had pride and a quiet love of the other's strength, which made them push harder because that is what respect asks for.

They were going to break the seal.

Two auras came down.

They did not fall. They arrived the way a tide arrives, with pressure and with no point you could stab to make it stop.

The first was cool and clean, like air above a high lake that has never known a city. It smelled faintly of green things and silver bark.

The second was warm and dark, like a room with the door shut and the curtains drawn where candlelight makes everyone's eyes look softer.

It smelled faintly of wine and ink. Both auras were old. Both were heavy. Both were careful.