NOVEL NEXT 68. Who Are We?
"What the heck do you mean she's not coming?!" I hiss. "What did you do to Maggie?"
"I didn't do anything," the strange voice replies. "But I can feel that my presence suppresses hers. Her will is strong, but my faith is stronger."
Another explosion shakes our tunnel, a bit closer this time. The stalker's timing is getting better.
"I don't give a flying frick about your stupid dang faith!" I warn her. "Give back—"
"How dare you?!" she interrupts. "The Goddess is everything. Only the truly depraved would try to deny her."
I groan in frustration and Talla gives me a concerned look.
"What's going on?" she asks. "Are you alright?"
"It's the new girl," I explain, tapping my fingers irritably on the ground. "She's...Fa'aun? Somehow? She sounds like a religious nutjob and she's holding Maggie hostage."
"Slow down," Talla sighs. "I can't understand you."
"Says the one who keeps rambling on about technical stuff without any consideration for the fact that I'm trying to learn the language too!"
"Huh?!"
Ugh, nevermind, she doesn't deserve that. I'm just frustrated and taking it out on the wrong person.
"What about Violet?" I whisper urgently as yet another explosion comes dangerously close to flooding the tunnel with fire. "Are you going to hold her hostage too?"
Talla and Draga are already trying to crawl backwards, but they can't turn around in the tight confines. The new girl huffs indignantly, seemingly unperturbed by the danger we're in.
"I resent the implications of the word 'hostage'!" she complains. "I am not demanding anything from you. The chaos witch will remain suppressed no matter how you try to ply me."
That's what she takes issue with?! I thought Mags was a little crazy, but this one is downright psychotic!
"As for the other, I have no idea," she answers simply. "She's not my concern."
How the heck is she doing this? Wait, is she even doing this on purpose? Before it changed to [Locus of Thought], the [Parallel Wills] skill said it could only support two extra minds. Did...whoever this is somehow slip into Maggie's slot when we were knocked out?
"What do I call you, anyway?" I ask.
"I am E'ava'al'n Ke'ena'a, Priestess of the Great Wheel."
"Evelyn Kayna?"
"Absolutely not!" she protests. "That is a horrendous butchering of my name and I will not tolerate it."
"Evelyn it is," I respond with a bit of malicious delight at her sputtering indignation.
"Wait," Talla says. "Kayna? Do you mean Ke'ena'a?!"
"That's what she said, yeah," I confirm. "Is that a big name or something?"
For some reason, rather than respond directly, Talla translates my question for Draga.
"The opposite," he scoffs. "It's my name—or rather, lack of one. The lowest caste—clanless. Where did you even hear that term?"
"Just now," I tell him. "From the weird new voice in my head."
The two rangers look at me like I'm crazy, which I guess is fair enough given the circumstances, but a bit insulting.
"I'm serious! She says she's a priestess of the great wheel and she won't let Maggie in front to use magic."
Another explosion lands close enough that it actually sends me reeling, and I have to scramble back away from the mouth of the tunnel.
"We're running out of time, Eva—if you don't let Maggie help, then we're all going to die. You've saved us twice already, is this the hill you want to literally die on?"
"The Goddess will see us through without depending on the forces of Chaos," she insists. "I have faith."
To heck with her, then! There's no use arguing with a zealot, so I change tack.
"Vi—I don't know if you can hear me, but you need to switch places with Maggie. I think Eve is taking up her spot in our skill."
"Why do you insist on calling me every name but my own?" Evie complains.
I ignore her, waiting and praying for any sign of response from Violet. To my immense relief, a response does come.
"I've been trying," Violet huffs. "But even if I rationally know that Maggie is our best hope of survival right now, giving up my entire existence for her goes against something too fundamental for me to let go of."
"See?" Ev sneers. "Even she understands that the chaos witch cannot be trusted."
"I trust her infinitely more than I do you," Vi retorts. "At least she is one of us. I don't know what you are, but you don't belong here."
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"On that, monster, we can agree."
Ugh! Can I have just one headmate that doesn't have beef with the rest?
"Fine," I sigh. "I guess I'll just have to fuse classes to give us an extra slot. I was hoping to save it for later, but Lyn's not giving me a choice."
"Oh come on, that wasn't even close!"
I stick my tongue out, then nearly bite it off as another explosion slams into the tunnel. Oh heck, the stalker's getting really good with those now!
"Wait!" Violet halts me before I can go through with the decision. "What if that doesn't work, or if the process knocks us out again?"
"I was worried about that too, but what other options do we have?" I ask.
"Well, have you tried giving up your spot to Maggie?" she points out.
I blink. "What? That's silly, Vi, I don't have a spot. I'm just me."
"Come on, Allison," she scolds me. "I think it's obvious by now that we're not just products of a skill. We're not alternate universe versions of each other, or magical simulacra, or random people shoved into a body together."
"I know that!" I counter. "I get it—we're all unique individuals, but we're also all part of one whole."
"Speak for yourselves!" Eva—dang, I'm running out of nicknames—complains.
"Shut up! This isn't about you!" I retort. "The difference, Violet, is that I'm..."
I'm what, exactly? The original? Special? More me than any of the rest of us? I want to say yes to all of those things, but I feel disgusted by that same urge. Is that really how I think? Is that really how I want to think?
I'm Allison, Violet is Violet, and Maggie is Maggie—but who are we? I don't know what the answer is, but as much as I hate to admit it, I don't feel like it's just Allison.
Her words echo in my head, about how each of us has a different mind, but the same brain. Whatever the mechanism is doing to support us, we all still exist independently of it. That means that Vi and Maggie are still in here with me somewhere.
Another set of words flares to life in my mind. Something I only saw briefly, when I first took [Unified Collective], an afterthought at the time, but something that has stuck with me.
[Permanent] - Nothing can take away who you are.
Whoever we are, nothing can take it away from us. Not the [World Engine], not the Goddess, and certainly not some overzealous weirdo! Maggie isn't just another me, and she isn't just another person, either. She is herself, but she is also part of me. I am myself, but I am also...
"Fucking took you long enough," I mutter.
"What?!" Priestess Bitchface screeches in alarm. "No! You can't be—!"
"Nope!" I interrupt, shoving her deep into some tiny corner of my mind and tuning her out. "Not dealing with you right now."
"Allie?" Talla asks nervously.
"Bzzt! Wrong!" I reply with a grin.
Scrambling over to the edge of the tunnel, I make it just in time to catch another fireball before it can explode. The stalker tries to detonate it anyway, but its efforts are a clumsy imitation of my own abilities—I convert the fire back to heat faster than it can turn that same energy to force.
"Nice try, asshole," I mock the thing. "Alright Vi, close your eyes!"
"What? Maggie, what are you doing? I see through the same eyes that you—" is about all she can manage before I leap from the tunnel, eliciting a terrified shriek.
The Worm Tunnel is quite a bit higher up than the Webbed Tunnel—seriously Allie?—and I land hard, sending a painful shock through our whole body and dropping me to all fours.
"Ow..." I wheeze, slightly winded from the drop.
"You idiot!" Violet whines. "That could have killed us!"
"But it didn't!"
The stalker tries to hit me with a stream of fire, but I concentrate the entire thing into a single point with my [Pyrokinesis] before it can immolate me. It tries to use its only remaining unbroken limb to impale me, but I sidestep the weak attack and grab hold of the limb.
It struggles weakly as I approach, flailing its bleeding and broken limbs uselessly and trying to hit me with fire or webbing to no avail. The fire I seize control of and the webs I burn. I stomp on its last limb to pin it to the ground and look down at the monster that's brought us so much pain.
Half of its body is missing, and what's left is in bad shape. The fact that it's alive after all that is a testament to its incredible hardiness, but this is finally the end.
Or at least, it should be. I hurl the collected mass of flames down to finish the demon off, but it just absorbs them. It tries to shoot them back, but once again I seize control before it can harm me. I frown, realizing the impasse that we've reached. Thanks to Engie's support, I've got much better control over the fire, but even as injured as it is, the demon has far more magical power. I don't know if it even has attributes the same way that we do, but I bet it's got tons of Ego and Resilience.
"It's kinda like you, Vi," I comment.
"Excuse me?!"
"No, I mean like, it's got a lot of Ego and Resilience," I clarify. "I wasn't trying to insult you." This time.
"I have no idea what kind of deranged logic got you there, but I find the comparison insulting anyway," she grumbles.
"Okay, sorry," I apologize with a shrug. "Well I guess we're at a stalemate..." I sigh, then grin. "Is what I'd be saying if we didn't have a secret weapon. I might not be able to kill this fucker, but I can hold it still for someone who can."
I glance back up at the tunnel to see that Talla and Draga are still struggling to get past Saban. Oops! I shouldn't have left him up there. Whatever, I wasn't talking about them anyway. I lift one shoulder to nuzzle Nipper with my cheek, then hold my arm out towards the stalker. Its constantly shifting eyes go wide, and it renews its struggles, emitting the eerie silent scream again.
"Go on, boy," I urge Nipper as he slithers down my arm. "Free food!"
The nauseating silent vibrations the stalker produces only seem to encourage the adorable little worm-snake, which tears into the demon with aplomb. I keep the stalker restrained both physically and magically while Nipper eats it alive. Whatever crazy resilience has kept the demon alive also keeps it conscious, and its futile twitching and struggling grows weaker, but never quite stops.
"I probably shouldn't be enjoying this, should I?"
"No," Violet answers. "But I've got to admit, it's a little bit satisfying."
Nipper's a bit of a messy eater, but he makes short work of the thing, and by the time the rangers find their way down, they find me feeding Nipper the last remaining piece of leg.
"Blood and acid," Draga swears. "I had no idea your pet was capable of...this."
He gestures vaguely at the messy black stain where the demon used to be.
"I've never heard of anything eating a demon," Talla mutters, staring at Nipper with a mix of awe and trepidation. "I hope there aren't any worrisome consequences."
I look down at the cute little guy, who doesn't even have the common courtesy to burp after his big meal.
"Nah," I say. "It'll be fine."