NOVEL WEB 373. The Enemy!
Ike charged at Scar. She stared at him, wide-eyed in shock. At the last second, she drew her sword, and their blades clashed. Caught off-guard, Scar staggered backward. "Ike! What are you doing?"
"You know what I'm doing, puppet," Ike replied. Scar and Vi weren't friends, and they certainly hadn't gotten close during the trial. He didn't know how puppets were made, or how this particular one had been built, but she clearly didn't have all of Scar's memories, especially not the ones from the trial realm for the King, where Shawn had revealed himself to be a mountain, or Vi and her had been enemies, the same as the rest of the contestants had been.
"Yeah, puppet! You'll never get us with your evil plan to make us civilized!" Wisp cheered, appearing behind Scar and kicking her into Ike's attack.
Scar stumbled, but recovered, nimbly swinging away from Ike's strike. "You guys are insane! What do you mean, puppet? I'm me! Stop, and let's talk this out!"
"That's what a puppet would say. Where were you leading us? Into some trap?" Ike challenged her. "When you stepped out to contact someone, were you reaching out directly to Brightbriar? Admit it, puppet!"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Stop this, or I'm going to have to get serious," Scar warned them.
Ike narrowed his eyes. She was putting on a good face, but why? Could it be that she herself didn't know she was a puppet? It was like Shopkeep's city, or Clarina's hometown. It was very possible that they were talking to Scar, or at least, whatever was left of her, and she had no reason to question herself, or wonder whether she was real. But if that was the case, why did she not remember her time in the trial realm?
No. I'm willing to bet Scar's still alive somewhere .This puppet is imperfect, which implies that Brightbriar made it with limitations. It's not that I think Brightbriar is merciful, or that I'm hoping for Scar to live—not that I want her to die—but cold, hard logic. He has no reason to have made an imperfect puppet if Scar is in his hands, and this puppet is all that remains of her.
"Yeah, whatever. It's cute how you think I could fall for this," Ike mocked snidely. He and Scar traded a dozen blows, Scar's hits getting heavier as she realized he was seriously fighting to kill.
"You did," Wisp pointed out, lunging at Scar from behind. Scar flicked her fingers, and a mysterious beam of red light materialized and smacked Wisp in the forehead, throwing her backward.
Ike rolled his eyes. "I mean this part of it, not the ruse from the get-go."
"Weak, too weak. You need stronger ground to mock from. Even Mag thinks so," Wisp said.
"I… what?" Mag asked, startled into the conversation. He stood slightly back, still not too sure about attacking Scar; besides, his long-ranged and large-sized spells weren't suited for this kind of close-ranged battle. To summarize, the look on his face read: Ike and Wisp can handle this, and his eyes had been wandering the room in such a way that suggested he considered the battle predetermined and not worth watching.
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"You think Ike's weak."
"No I don't," Mag said, completely missing Wisp's tone. He frowned. "What are you two doing?"
"Mag… ignore her." Ike summoned a Tempest in his palm and threw it at Scar. Scar dodged nimbly, and the Tempest whirled at Wisp. Wisp hopped it, but Scar whirled and instantly seized on her momentary distraction to try and wrap Wisp in a bearhug, meaning to hold her hostage.
"Idiot," Wisp admonished her, and vanished.
Scar's bearhug closed on nothing as a tiny spider scuttled away. Her full commit to the grab left her open, and Ike immediately capitalized on it with a heavy blow to the part of her back where the other mass-produced puppets had had cores. If I'm right…
Crack!
Porcelain shattered. Scar had a moment to look shocked before her body seized up and toppled to the floor, lifeless. As she died, a magic that had been cast on her melted away. Her body reverted to a default puppet's, faceless, dressed in white, with short white hair.
"An illusion on a cheap puppet. He manufactured this in a hurry," Ike commented, kicking the puppet away.
"That seems like it means something," Wisp said mysteriously from his shoulder.
He glanced at her. "It means he's in a rush. He didn't expect us, or he was in a rush to replicate Scar. In other words, we either surprised him by getting here faster than expected, or we encountered this fake moments before we should have encountered Scar."
"Should we go check on Scar?" Wisp asked, tilting her head.
Ike shook his head. "How? I don't know how to get back. His trap wasn't flawless, but it was good enough. We've been separated from Scar, and he knows everything we know. Scar might be in trouble right now, but we have no way to get her, and we're ourselves vulnerable, since he knows where we are and he knows we're alone."
"She felt like Scar's aura, right?" Wisp asked. "Isn't that what you sensed? Puppets can mimic auras, but usually only if the real person got processed into them, right?"
Ike looked at the puppet. If he was right, and this wasn't Scar but a dressed-up generic puppet, then it should have had a generic puppet mana signature. It was true that their mana signatures usually only matched if the real person was in there, but… he hadn't scanned her at close range. He'd only scanned her from afar, and not bothered once he saw her face. "I think… I think I sensed the real Scar, and then got bait-and-switched with a puppet at close range. I never tried to sense her aura once I saw her face. Why would I, right?"
"Right," Wisp said, nodding. "Wait, but she knew about you… do you think that was a copy of the real Scar's memories, or Lord Brightbriar?"
Ike grimaced. "Fuck! I bet that was just Lord Puppetfuck, probing to find out how much I remembered. She started that conversation. And her face… I wonder if he did something to her to make her look like someone I… the greater being used to know. Something to prompt a reaction, because I never felt anything toward her before. Fuck, fuck, fuck. From the moment we met Scar, I've been dancing in the palm of his hand. We're so—"
"Fucked!" Wisp interceded.
Ike looked at her.
She shrugged. "I was playing guess the next word. Your vocabulary got kinda simple there, so I thought I could figure it out. Was I right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, you were."
"Cool. Hey, Ike, do you sense what I sense?"
"Is it a fuckton of puppet energy signatures rushing our way?"
Wisp grinned. "You know it!"
Turning to face the sky, Ike let out one final bellow: "Fuck!"