93: Mortality and broken mirrors

My reflection made the first move, and shortly after, the rest followed. As such, we were once again thrown into an uncontrollable frenzy of movements which were not our own. Feet beat against the hard surface of the mirror, swords, bows, arrows, blades, all raised in the air, ready to strike their targets. As much as I willed myself to stop from moving, I couldn’t. This movement was hers, and what my reflection had chosen to do was drive her blade right through my shoulder. And I, as her reflection, did the same. The pain was indescribably excruciating. It was hot as hell fire engulfing my skin in flames, and then freezing cold as shards of ice piercing through every inch of my arm. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and I collapsed to my knees and clutched onto my shoulder as my screams rung throughout the room, only to be drowned out by the screams of the others. My reflection did not scream though. Instead, she smiled wickedly, clutching onto her arm as I did mine. But instead of blood gushing from the wound I’d inflicted on her shoulder, a sliver of bright blueish skin peeked out from it. It was as though she were only *wearing* my skin on top of hers, and when I’d pierced through it, I’d damaged the skin she was wearing.
Curious as to the effect my blade had had on her skin, I shakily held mine up and she did the same. I winced, braced myself for the pain to come and then drove the sword into my own shoulder, slicing through the flesh and all the while, howling out in agony. The feeling of fire and ice engulfed my entire arm now in unbearable pain. But it was worth it to confirm my suspicions. The skin on my reflection’s arm now hung off and beneath it, more blue skin was revealed. The more we attacked each other, the more skin she’d shed. It was an easy feat for me, considering that I was immortal, and I’d eventually heal myself up… or so I thought.
“We’ve been watching you very closely, Diana.” My celestial reflection suddenly spoke. If I thought her looking like me was disturbing, her sounding like me was downright spine-chilling.
“It’s Phoenix,” I began. Slowly I began to get myself off of my knees and back onto my feet. By now I expected my wounds to begin healing again. After all, I healed faster than normal vampires and as I took a look around, I noticed that the nobles had begun to heal already. Their counterparts, however healed along with them, rendering it almost impossible for them to defeat each other. That’s when I began to grow panicked at how different my circumstances were.
I touched at my wound again, covering my fingers in the blood which leaked from it and then I looked up at the celestial before me with a confused look on my face. “What’s going on? Why am I not healing?”
She snickered and then dropped her sword, forcing me to do the same. “You see that’s the problem when you get all of your information from hell. You end up thinking that celestials are foolish enough to want to capture your soul.”
Suddenly we were walking towards each other slowly. My fingers still clutched against my shoulder and now-and-then, I’d squeeze at it. The bitch was enjoying torturing me almost as much as she enjoyed my plain confusion.
“If you’re not here to collect my soul, then what *are* you here for.” I asked.
“I’m here to destroy you.” She said with venom dripping from her every word. “Lucretia was mistaken. When an immortal brought back from soul magic kills another immortal brought back from soul magic, they destroy the immortal, along with its soul. And now that I’m reflecting you… it makes me an immortal brought back with soul magic too.”
For a moment I forgot all about the pain I was in as her words rang through my head. Disillusionment consumed me as my mind struggled to comprehend the one thing I never had to in this lifetime- death. It now hung in the air thickly, invading my nostrils with its suffocating, putrid stench and its intense, copper taste against my tongue.
My reaction to disillusionment was, however, denial as I tried to will what she’d said away. “You’re lying.”
She was now right in front of me, so close that I could feel the warmth of her breath against my face. In the next instant, her hands were loosely around my throat and mine around hers. The feeling of her skin under my bloodied fingers felt unnatural and plastic and I couldn’t help but curl my toes in disgust at its artificial texture.
“We both know I’m not lying Phoenix.” She said. “Once I drive my hands through your chest and rip out your beating heart, that’s the end for you.”
“Why…” I hissed out.
She inched her face closer to mine, and that’s when I noticed something rather odd. Beneath her plastic-like skin which hung open on her shoulder, was a thin film of mirror which seemed to be attaching the plastic skin onto her own blue skin. But my attention moved from her reflective skin to her words once she spoke again.
“Because the magic that flows in your veins is incredibly powerful. You’ve only scratched the surface of it, Phoenix. Your power doesn’t deserve to be constricted to someone like you, someone who doesn’t understand it. Once I destroy your soul, I’ll absorb all of it, making me the most powerful celestial in existence.”
So that’s what this was all about? Power? The thought made me feel even more disgust towards her and I had the sudden urge to get out of her grasp. And so, I began thrashing around and so did she. In response, she began tightening her grip around my throat, and so did I, around hers. Eventually we lost our footing and came crashing to the cold, hard floor. Our hands still clasped tightly on each other’s throats, and I tried increasing the pressure on hers despite the discomfort around my own throat and the searing pain still burning and freezing through my shoulder. We rolled over each other for a moment, smearing my blood all over the clean mirror and blurring my reflection in the process. That’s when I could no longer hold onto her, and she could no longer hold onto me. We flew off of each other and landed quite a distance from one another. That’s when my head hit at the surface of the mirror. It was a hard enough hit for my head to get a throbbing headache. I lay there on the floor for a moment as I drowned in all of the pain which overwhelmed my senses. Once the pain had subsided enough so that my vision wasn’t horribly blurred, I sat up and gently touched my fingers to the back of my head where I’d hit it against the mirror. I brought my hands in front of my face and scanned the bloody fingers. That was when I noticed it. On the surface of the mirror was a large, deep crack. Immediately I thought back to the celestial’s plastic skin and the film of mirror beneath, and as I did, I let my gaze wander to her. And there it was on her left cheek. A crack in her skin, exactly like the crack in the mirrored floor. But it wasn’t just on her, all of the celestials now had deep cracks on the sides of their cheeks.
“The floor…” I muttered. This was how we’d sever our bonds with our reflections. And so, I yelled out, much louder this time. “The floor! Break the floor!”
Liam glanced at me, covered in sweat and visibly exhausted. Then his gaze lowered to the rest of my body and his expression turned into one of concern and fear. But I nodded in reassurance and tapped on the mirror. He nodded back and then yelled out what I had before to the rest of the nobles.
Our discovery unfortunately did not go unnoticed by our celestial counterparts who now tried everything to prevent the nobles from destroying the mirror. They flung themselves across the room, threw aside their weapons and even injured themselves. All except one lone celestial. My reflection. She was angry now, angrier than I’d seen her this whole time. Swiftly she got herself off of the floor and began running towards me, and I began running towards her. Both our hands were outstretched with our long, sharp claws slicing through the air. She was going to kill me, drive her hand right through my chest and rip out my heart. Again, I tried to stop myself, I tried to stop my feet from moving forward, to pull my hand back in and even retract my claws, but I couldn’t. And as we got closer towards each other, I began to feel mortal, afraid and powerless. And that was when I caught sight of Liam breaking through the glass in my peripheral view and I realised that I couldn’t give up just yet, not after everything everyone had done and sacrificed for me to be here. And so, at the very last second, just before my reflection could lay a finger on me, I channelled all of that fear and all of that vulnerability into every single muscle in my body. That’s when I managed to bend over backward, narrowly dodging her clawed fingers. I watched as they passed over and above my head and then let out a sigh of relief once I made it to the other side of her. She glanced back at me, confused, disorientated and annoyed. I realised then that this moment would be my last opportunity to completely sever our bond. And so, I parted my legs slightly. She did the same. I then bent my knees, placed my fingers together and balled them into a fist in front of me. I could feel her trying to defy me, but I was still running on the fear and determination from before and so all of her efforts were rendered futile.
I then closed my eyes, took in a breath and focused on the blood racing through my body. Once I was focussed enough, I concentrated all of my strength into my arms and legs. I launched myself off of the ground, sending my counterpart flying through the air along with me. Once I was high up enough, I lifted my hands into the air and used them to bring myself down. The moment they made contact with the floor the entire room shattered completely. The sound was deafening, but that wasn’t the worst part. Glass flew around everywhere, slicing not only through the air, but through our flesh as well. And as the room around us shattered into pieces, I realised that we were now suspended high in the air with what appeared to be clouds a far distance below our feet.
Eventually the pieces of glass began to disappear into a soft silvery substance and the wounds they had inflicted upon us previously had all healed up. The only wounds which now remained were the ones my reflection had inflicted upon me. But she was now no longer my reflection. Instead, she had reverted back to her original celestial form, along with the others. They looked weaker now, paler too and their skin had lost its ethereal glow. Reflecting us must have taken a lot of their power and now they were vulnerable.
“Sixteen Phoenix!” I heard Liam say next to me. I tore my gaze away from the celestial’s and raised a brow at him.
“What?”
He then threw one of the two swords he was carrying towards me, which I caught swiftly.
“There are only sixteen people allowed to make it through this round. Make sure you’re one of them!” and with that, he raced ahead in front of me, blade in the air and determination in his eyes. I felt a sense of relief seeing him like this. I had been underestimating him and he only proved my point when he drove his blade into one of the celestials, bringing them down to their knees. Then, he dealt the final blow as he severed their head and it came tumbling down, suspended in the air. Light engulfed Liam’s body and as soon as it did, Liam disappeared. But then, something odd happened. The severed head lifted into the air and attached itself back onto the celestial’s head and along with it, the rest of their wounds healed up. It slowly began to make sense. These were celestials we were dealing with and so death was nothing they had to fear. And… *for now*, death was nothing I had to fear either.
That was when I made my move, singling out the celestial who’d caused me so many problems this round. She was still on her knees but rose the second she saw me coming towards her. She raised her sword in the air and stumbled forward. I dodged her movement swiftly, grabbed at her arm and pulled her into the sword in my hand. It went right through her chest, and she slumped forward. Her head hung against my shoulder, and she dropped her sword. I shoved her off and she floated downward until her body remained still and suspended in the air. Her head rolled to the side and suddenly her eyes widened, and she gasped before reaching out and pointing a finger. I slowly removed my eyes from her and let my gaze wander to where her finger was pointing. But just before I could see who she was pointing at, I felt a hand grip at my elbow, and before I knew it, my sword had sliced through her throat. I attempted to turn around to see who had forced my hand but was suddenly engulfed by light so blinding that I could barely see my own hands as I held them out before me. Then, just as suddenly as the light had come, it went, leaving me in a restless sense of darkness.
Who was the celestial pointing at, and were they the same person who had grabbed at my elbow?
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Questions... questions... it seems something sinister is afoot!! On another note, what happened to Aaliyah... did Felicity make it out of this round... and who else has been missing Demetri, Xavier and Sebastian??
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Sending my love!