Reflections on the Warpath - [An Isekai Progression Fantasy]

Six puppets loomed over Lyra. Hundreds more surrounded her; twin futures of the two rightmost puppets. They weaved through the jungle, swinging their batons at an invisible opponent.

Lyra's eyes flickered between both sets of puppets before her. Six physical foes blocked the path between her and revenge while two sets of ethereal twins clouded her view.

I have to go further.

A third set of futures spewed forth. Lyra didn't simply add another puppet but multiplied the ones she already tracked. More variables meant more potential futures, after all.

A haze of ghostly grey clouded Lyra's vision. The myriad layers of potential futures all overlapping each other.

One twin swung its club horizontally. Another reacted. It split into two futures. One ducked, One leapt over it. They both collided with the third puppet's twins.

They both split once more.

Lyra jumped back, giving up ground for an extra second to react. She slipped on a mulchy pile of leaves, too buried within the futures to feel the ground beneath her.

There's no way.

The puppets vanished. Lyra drew a shaky breath, her mind finally allowed to rest.

It's too much. I can't do it.

Perhaps she could handle three futures, but not for an entire fight. And who knew what else Amaya had prepared.

Lyra grimaced, rising to her feet as the six puppets floated closer. All in perfect synchronicity. She could've prepared for this, could've practiced on more than three opponents.

But she'd only ever thought about killing two.

Her preparation was never about survival; it was always just killing those two. Why train for six opponents when she'd never engage them?

Six people. Six futures intertwined. It was too much.

Too much chaos. Too much overlap. Too much for her mind to comprehend in the middle of a fight.

The first puppet floated down. It reared back its club. Lyra didn't need her twin foresight to see where it was going. She glanced at the other puppets. They kept their distance. Lyra deftly stepped out of the clubs range.

It swiped through thin air.

A second puppet surged towards the gap the first created. It swung its baton at Lyra's head. Behind her, a third puppet joined the offensive. Lyra swivelled ninety degrees, raising both her weapons in defence.

The batons struck both her rapier and axe at the same time.

Wait…

Lyra twisted, using both strikes' momentum to defend herself as she pivoted into open space. She let go of both her opponents' futures and her own.

It felt…freeing.

But she knew it couldn't last.

Three puppets came for her this time. The previous two moved back, allowing the next offensive to start.

They surrounded her. Perfectly spaced. Lyra raised her rapier to block one attack and dove forward to evade the other two. One of the batons crunched against her ankle. Lyra ignored the pain and rolled over her shoulder.

She stood up. Like clockwork, the next three puppets swooped down to greet her.

Of course they all move in sync. Of course they never clash.

They aren't warriors, they're puppets.

All controlled by Amaya's strings.

Lyra let go of the peaceful battle dance. She steeled her mind, gave it one final rest before diving into the future once more.

This time with the realisation of who she was fighting.

Dozens, not hundreds, of spectral puppets spilled into the jungle. This time emerging from all six puppets.

One swung its baton. It passed through another. Both vanished.

Those futures were impossible. With Amaya in control of all six puppets, they'd never act in contradiction of each other.

Lyra hid her smile. Amaya couldn't see the futures she saw but the puppeteer could see her reaction. Lyra weaved between the oncoming blows, occasionally taking a glancing blow but avoiding any true damage.

How do I use this?

Lyra pushed a baton aside, avoiding a second strike by launching a counterattack on the puppet. She jammed her rapier into the puppet's armpit, pressing the sword against the bronze plates.

All five remaining puppets swarmed to their ally's defence, overhead strings hauling them to action before Lyra could pry open the joint.

Too late.

A twinned grey arm peeled left as Lyra's physical arm went right. The mirrored push wrenched the two plates apart.

Orange light seeped into Lyra's ethereal arm. The glow rolled down her rapier like embers blown onto kindling, priming it to ignite.

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The light reached the rapier's tip. Volatile orange supplanted arcane red from within the puppet's armour.

BOOM!

Both lights vanished.

The arm fired into the jungle.

Lyra couldn't revel in her tiny victory, however. Five puppets flew her way, crimson strings from above guiding them towards her.

They moved faster now. And even if Lyra read their futures accurately, five on one on one rarely ended well.

Lyra jumped back. The puppets moved faster. One swiped its baton at her forehead, the second at her chest while the final three caught up. She raised her axe, suppressing the first swing before it gained any momentum. She deflected the second into the air.

But she couldn't block forever.

The slowest puppet heaved his club towards her in a wide arc. The final two awaited her reaction.

They wouldn't move until she did.

One big hit or two small ones…

Lyra planted her feet and brought both weapons up in a block. The two puppets rushed forward. They wouldn't reach her in time.

The club smashed into Lyra's feeble block, pressing her weapons against her torso. She jumped off the ground, letting the swing's momentum propel her through the air, away from the final two attacks.

The Emergent Bloom's slick undergrowth gave Lyra little grip as she careened away from Amaya's puppet army. She slid across the ground, catching on loose vines before stopping at the base of a giant tree.

The one armed puppet floated off the ground. It joined the other five in a formation. All six drifted towards Lyra, held airborne by crimson arcane strings.

Lyra's eyes flickered up to the canopy. Each set of stings had a unique origin.

She's surely in the canopy. It's the only place where she could consistently see the battlefield.

But where in the canopy?

Lyra looked back at the puppets; she couldn't stare upwards for long. If Amaya realised that Lyra knew how to deal with multiple puppets she'd change strategy.

If I keep looking, she'll react…

She'll react!

Lyra had initiated this fight by probing the jungle with her clones and waiting for one to be ambushed. Lyra knew that the puppeteer wouldn't just accept her fate if she found her.

Lyra dropped her weapons and focused her foresight inwards.

She knelt and placed her palms on the ground. Another set matched them, their grey outlines beginning to glow orange.

She looked up.

Hundreds of future Lyras launched into the canopy, propelled by the explosions at her palms.

They vanished into the branches untouched.

All apart from one.

Lyra watched her ethereal twin tumble downwards the moment she reached the canopy. Slammed by an unseen force.

Found you.

Explosive might swelled in Lyra's twinned wrists. She felt her twin's fiery presence beside her. A snarl tugged at Lyra's lips. She'd finally found her sister's killer.

Lyra flew upwards, unleashing the explosions onto the rainforest dirt and aiming just beside where her future twin met its end.

Dozens of crimson strings shot out from the canopy, each pointed towards the six puppets below.

Amaya would surely bring the puppets up to defend her.

Lyra knew they couldn't make it in time.

She pierced through the spindly branches of the lower canopy, four fists raised as she leapt for the kill.

There.

Before either gladiator reacted, an ethereal twin burst from Lyra. The incorporeal twin leapt over the frail branches, charging straight for the puppeteer. Amaya recoiled from her perch, raising her arms in a hapless defence.

Her arcane strings extended to her puppets beneath the canopy. Lyra knew they'd be here to defend her soon.

Her twin could harass Amaya. It could hurt her too. But if Lyra wanted to win the fight, she needed to get her hands on the puppeteer. She climbed deeper into the canopy, searching for drier bark and stabler footing.

Potential futures leapt from Lyra once more, charging towards Amaya. Most slipped and fell through the canopy. Lyra followed the ones who didn't.

Before her, Lyra's ethereal twin harassed Amaya, wrestling her arms and disrupting her control of the puppets. Orange embers crept into the twin's grey outlines. It held them at bay, saving her true rage for what was to come.

Dozens of potential futures fell through the canopy as Lyra hopped from branch to branch. She closed the final gap and speared at Amaya's chest.

The twin vanished as Lyra dove through it.

The two women fell through the canopy. Lyra wrapped her arms around Amaya, holding her tight. She could survive the drop. Amaya couldn't.

But the puppeteer didn't give up that easily.

Crimson strings shot out of her now-free hands, stretching to the canopy, grasping its branches and slowing their fall.

Lyra pulled her hands off Amaya's torso. She knocked the puppeteer's hood off and wrapped her obsidian hands around her neck.

The strings slowed them down further. Amaya's back touched down with little more than a bump. Her half mechanical face forced out a strangled smile as an icy blue glow emanated from the diamond necklace around her throat.

Lyra squeezed tighter.

Ice crystallized around her hands. The same artefact that scuppered her sister's chances at victory now pushed Lyra back too. Amaya flailed for her puppets, Calling them closer with her arcane strings.

But Lyra kept holding on, kept pressing her palms into Amaya's windpipe, ignoring the veins of ice wrapping around her wrists.

A grey outline flashed over the surface of Amaya's body. The puppeteer's eyes shot open, looking up at Lyra.

Her expression vanished.

The ice coating her neck vanished.

The arcane strings vanished.

The two gladiators remained perfectly still.

Lyra broke the stalemate with a grin.

Amaya grinned back.

When Lyra opened her mouth, Amaya did too.

When Lyra spoke, Amaya did too.

"I've been waiting a long time for this."

Amaya's voice mirrored Lyra's exactly, both gladiators in perfect synchronicity.

Her puppets lay lifeless on the ground. Arcane strings severed, the bronze segments splayed across the jungle.

Amaya didn't look their way. She couldn't.

All she could do was stare into Lyra's emotionless obsidian eyes.

Lyra rolled off her opponent's static body. When she sat up, Amaya did too.

Both gladiators rose to their feet.

They turned to face each other.

Lyra reached down to both her weapons. Amaya mirrored her, grasping at the air beside her waist.

Lyra raised both weapons before handing Amaya her axe and forcing her to grab it with her right hand.

They both took three steps back.

Lyra sat down.

Amaya sat down.

Lyra held out her left hand, fingers outstretched.

Amaya held out her left hand, fingers outstretched.

Both gladiators raised their weapons.

Lyra wished she could see the fear behind her enemy's eyes, the abject horror of helplessness as the puppeteer became the puppet and Amaya was forced to mirror her movements exactly. But the puppeteer's face was locked into the same icy cold expression as hers was.

They both began speaking.

"One's twin… is more than simply their partner."

While Lyra formed each sentence, Amaya matched it as soon as it reached her lips.

"A twin is more than a mere sibling. They're more than an identical clone.

"Because before they were two, both twins were once one."

Lyra drew her rapier across her fingers, the measured slash barely cut into her obsidian skin.

When Amaya sliced with her axe, a spurt of blood splattered across her face, staining both flesh and metal a deep crimson.

She didn't flinch, she didn't scream or cry out. She couldn't.

The only sounds escaping her mouth were repetitions of Lyra's haunting words.

"That's what you took from me.

"Every day I wake up I do it without a piece of my soul. I wake up and half of my very being isn't there and the half that's left wishes it was dead."

Lyra's lips twisted into a sneer. Amaya's face matched her expression but it could never match the fury behind it.

"But now I'm not alone, Amaya. Now I have you!

"Just as one became two… now two have become one.

"Do you now understand the terror you inflicted on my twin, Amaya? The sickening helplessness, the stolen autonomy? If you haven't, then you will soon.

"Because I'm going to enjoy killing you, Amaya. I'm going to relish it.

"And I'm going to take my time."