CHAPTER 23 – PRIYA VS NOMI

Second Age, Echo Realm

Echo, and the Couple assembled to see how damaged the gift-bearer was after the recent attack. "The truth will never tame me! I can tear apart everything I want and rip it into shreds. Stories will no longer be safe harbors for words. They can never stay like they used to, like feral squatters and I will flush them out. Then I will walk through the universe, and brittle stars can be crushed under my feet like autumn leaves. And I will blindfold time with space and push him off a cliff! My vengeance is gorgeous and all-consuming and mouthwatering and undeniable!" Nomi ranted. "My avatar is nuts" Echo whispered so only her parents could hear. "We have to deal with this …" Melina began, but was silenced, seeing the sudden movements of the gift-bearer. Then, wielding the kaleidoscope sabers Nomi slashed and severed the link in the avatar chain connecting the Couple and Echo. "Avatar Inversion … Collapse!" she cried. The thread connecting Echo to Etheria to Veles to Snow to Falzar to Phantomess to Alexa to Ralamara to Nomi became visible and retracted. Ralamara was the first, flung through an immense distance until entering into the monk. The rest followed, until etheria was dragged inward. Nomi approached unrelentingly as the chain shortened. Sensing the drag, Echo took hold of it and ripped its connection between her and what had been Etheria. Thin streams of blood continued to seep out of the hollow eye cavities down her face. As the vitality of the eight suffused through a single form, the monk looked onwards at the Couple with that same emptiness that was then filled as billows of glitter, a steady current escaped from them, from the cavities. Nomi looked around herself and noticed how at certain placed space feigned normality. "I feel the residue of the old world. It churns around us, dormant, wanting to be set free. Let me be your liberator". Holding the handles of the sabers, then melted into her hands, and the blades shortened, becoming radiant kaleidoscope hands that then hid themselves behind thin mechanical gloves. Directing a hand towards a distortion, the word, "Asymmetry" arose out of the asymmetrical field, and she detached the "A", the rest burning away in flame. "Echo, if I am the anchor, if I am the burden that you have let fall to the bottom of this ocean of silence, I must be the only one that's real" she said, and with a telekinetic push sent the "A" forwards. "I should move" though Echo, but the letter came too fast and strong. Etab and Timecurrent came and carried her away to a safer place to mend the trauma, too weakened to continue. "Now we have privacy" Nomi remarked, facing the Couple. Reaching out her hand towards the outer solar system, the Jovian satellite of Lysithea shrunk until it was greatly reduced in size and transported to her it became even smaller until it was the size of a ball. She turned it into a water balloon and threw it at them. Melina crafted a bow and fired a constellation arrow, spilling the water balloon of its contents. Linden appeared behind to strike, but she fell back, and in her hand took out a hypodermic needle and in the other summoned a tiny star, and withdrew a portion of its core substance, and stuck him in the chest with it, injecting it. His frame faded away, revealing a constellation clone, and the points erupted in shock. Turning around, the real Linden was near and became a cuckoo clock that thrust out its extension, knocking the gift-bearer through a frigate. More hypodermic needles appeared and drew blood, and she sent them as a volley towards Linden, but he evaded them, and they hit the frigate, destroying it. Now the three of them were at close quarters, and she withdrew her gloves to combat their constellation swords with kaleidoscope hands. Harvesting more asymmetrical fields she tossed "A" letters at them continuously. Melina summoned ladders and placed his hands upon them, and they became covered in flame, and pulled them apart, leaving the rungs, and sent them as volleys against her. "This is getting out of control" Ostigim said, holding her mother's head and wiping the sweat off of her forehead. Etab and Timecurrent were almost finished with their healing spells when she got up again. Echo could see the look in her daughter's eyes, feeling the meaning behind her words. "Don't say that. I won't do it" she whispered. "Be quiet. You're just a fool if you don't know it. This is the best way" Ostigim argued, gripping hard on her arm. They paused to witness the ensuing battle. "Try to explain me! At this point, nothing can explain what I have become! Let them all know that they will flock to the superb shrine of my disillusionment. Chemicals will transform logic. My bitterness will be their sweetness. I will make reality do ten jumping jacks! And I will be the architect, and this vengeance will be the foundation of my new world!" Nomi cried, and the billows joined into two streams that accumulated into a glitter skull. From its mouth and eyes issued a spell-beam that raced towards them. At that moment, drifting among the wreckage, Hogarth jerked from his hard slumber. An apple that was like an incorporeal spirit rolled towards him, then came to a halt. "Do you really believe that?" the head of Faber asked, aroused him. For the first time in many years, strange emotions boiled inside. He saw drifting his axe and took hold of it. The Couple held their constellation shields in place. When it arrived, Hogarth was standing between them, and slashed down with his axe, taking the brunt of it. "Gah!" he growled. "Thank you, Hogarth" Melina said, and Linden sent him away, seeing that he had taken the full burden.