The hero
Strength returned to me in an instance, I rose to my feet and dived to the side as I felt one's mind spike, before a purple beam cut through the position I was just kneeling a moment ago blowing a hole in the wall behind. "Tch," I heard someone click their tongue. "Oh boy stop hiding. You are only delaying the inevitable,"
I placed my hand on the wall of the house beside and started tracing my way to the door out of the Rank halls in this white world. Worse the world was getting darker, the storm getting darker. I moved back and back slowly, keeping a constant touch on the clones's mind. My body was numb from the cold, my lungs hurt.
"Come on Sainty," this time it was Kara's voice, "we just want your help. Hmm... I have been asleep for three decades, three! And your soul, the hero, is going to help me revive,"
"Not interested," I said, then swiftly moved to the side and slipped out of the door. I heard a beam hit the wall I was just standing before, piercing it in an explosion of purple. I had hidden in the other side of the door though so I was not affected.
I finally got the chance to draw my sword too.
"Stop running puny Highvoid!" Possessed Kara screamed. "If you don't reveal yourself your girlfriend would die,"
I froze. She was lying. Of course she was. So that's how it's.... They didn't have Celestine. The little princess must still be in the library reading and jesting with Cvela. Scars had capitalize on our lack of communication to lure me here. I suspected it! Too bad I chose the most rational decision like she had expected. I felt like a fool. But the good news was now I could escape since she has nothing on me. In the first place it was stupid of her to have appeared this early, impatience perhaps? She could have waited till I was totally exhausted as I plodded to the city before taking me out. That would have been more efficient. Or maybe her hand was forced. Maybe she had a clone watching the Doom Hide house and saw Kina arrive.
Well it didn't matter in the end, what mattered was getting out of here. Another clone's mind spiked. I considered mind blitzing her but also wanted to see what she could do to know which to make priority if more than one attacked at the same time. So I let it happen. All the clones might possess space magic but the execution was different for each one. I tried but I also couldn't mind control them in possessed state since I didn't know the name of the possessor.
A clone suddenly appeared beside me the next moment, swinging her sword down on me. Hey, how did she find me! I blocked with my sword, sparks flying out, then sent a kick at her but only hit air as she teleported away. Ah, she's fast!
I felt her appear beside me but before she could swing I dived to the side and started running away back the way I came from, back towards my dorm. I felt the clones follow. Four followed straight forwardly but one would appear behind or ahead so quickly as she searched for me, and disappear just as quick. I recon that's the teleporter, and none of them shared her troublesome ability which was a blessing. I shudder to imagine four more of her hunting me.
Apart from the teleporter, their abilities were as follows. One had those purple beams, knowing the way the powers of this world works, and since it must be related to space, it's probably a beam that sucks anything it hits into a black hole or another dimension. So that remains Kara, Nuni and Scars. Nuni and Kara has storage powers but the difference was, were Kara could throw what she stores at you, Nuni could instead make a screen that transfers anything that touches it to anyplace she wants like a devouring barrier. Simply, Kara could store and throw, while Nuni could absorb any attack.
Scars though, who's the strongest of them, was the real problem. She could fire teleporting arrows that could multiply, lock in and chase down targets, and cut almost anything. She has never missed a shot in her life. That's why she was my favorite in the novel; she's this no nonsense person, that is really not complete as a person, but brutally honest and blunt. Even when she realized she's a clone in the novel she just stared at her hands and said she wished she was never made. She made a perfect friend for the cute sweet Rea.
The clones kept shooting beams into the storm failing to hit me, the teleporter kept searching for me but coming short each time. I hid well and the storm helped to give me cover. Their minds were all the same so I couldn't tell one from another but from the position there were I mapped out their identities. The teleporter was the one that moves around quickly. The one with the beam was the clone at the left edge of the four following normally; I knew that from the electric like spike in her brain anytime she's about to shoot the beams.
Kara was at the center, I mapped her position from detecting the direction of her voice earlier. That remains Scars and Nuni that flanked her but I didn't know which was which; I mind blitz the one trying to use her powers each time she attempts, as I suspected that was Scars since Nuni didn't have long range capability.
If Scars shoots, its game over, but she couldn't so it was a stalemate of sort. I could feel the annoyance of the possessor. "Saint!" She screamed. "You insect, just stop there and die! Agrr... Fine, don't blame me for being ruthless!"
I felt the mind of the one I suspected to be Nuni spike. My heart skipped. Did I miss calculate and this was Scars? No I didn't, the next moment a purple screen appeared in the air above curving like a giant dome roof, or an umbrella, suspended in the air. It swiftly sucked in the snow below and above it into its swirling surface taking off my cover.
I could see them now; Nuni, Scars, Kara and one other girl I didn't know behind me. The teleporter though appeared ahead of me blocking my escape path; she was a purple haired girl in pigtails wearing a blue ninja like suit. "It's the end of the road," she said.
I grinned at her spreading my hands to the side and retorted, "for who I wonder?"
I could feel a person approaching. It wasn't Kina, it was the mind of Rea, the protagonist herself. In the story this had been her battle, it's only fitting that she takes over from here. These clones think I am the hero? Let them experience the might of the real one and there'll know who's who.
Rea isn't the most op person in this world for nothing after all.
Thanks for reading.