Lewis groaned as the mountain more or less spat them out from the cave in. The massive amount of death that exuded from Raine was something that even Lewis was surprised at. Once more he was reminded that Raine was a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

Remind me to never piss off Angela or Raine…or Xeik for that matter, he said to Simone.

“That was quite something,” the fake Xeik stated, standing up front he rubble. His body was broken and battered, but he seemed not to care. “I bet poor Xeik is just writhing in agony at it all.” He frowned, though, when Raine called him a whiny bitch. “It would seem that my associates were no match for this…woman.” Power flowed around Xeik, and his wounds started to heal up.

Lewis darted forward, “Ok, so it’s something like this, right?” He had seen Xeik do it hundreds of times at this point. And now, with Xeik’s power, he could see it. The lines in someone’s body, and the flow of mana. With each blow he landed on the fake Xeik, he crushed the mana veins, and restricted the flow. At once, the healing stopped.

“What the…what the hell did you just-”

“Hush. Not done,” Lewis said as he slammed his head into Xeik’s. The resulting blow was enough to send both of them to their knees. “Okay…that looked a lot cooler in my head.”

Still, it was enough to, at least temporarily, put Xeik down.

“All right bird brain,” Lewis said as he winced. “What do we do now…”

“Practice a thousand times and you’ll look as cool as Xeik!” Raine hoisted the Xeik above her head and started to parade his body around. “Thank you mountain! Come! Divine Weapon!”

The portal was open and Angela was waiting on the other side. She rushed and took Xeik. “Who did this to my baby?” She was ragdolling Xeik. “Oh, I sense you…” She narrowed her sight down on the body she held. “Don’t think you are escaping my wrath!”

Mia was up in an instant waving her arms in a panic.

“I am not going to kill Xeik… I’m going to forge a weapon… A permanent prison… A prize.” Angela looked at Lewis. “A dagger or bow? Tell me mighty demon…" She woke the demon in Xeik's body but her iron-clad grip kept him from moving. "Am I just a pathetic goddess now?"

They were moving so quickly now that they had Xeik in their custody. With some help from Simone, they all made it back to Elysia. Angela immediately went to work on Xeik, and it was felt like no time at all, grasped the heart of the problem, and posed a strange question to Lewis.

“Uh…bow, I guess?” Lewis stated curiously. “I don’t see how this is-”

“YOU VILE WOMAN!” a voice echoed from Xeik’s body. “UNHAND ME THIS INSTANT OR I SHALL-”

“Yeah, bow will do,” the ex-assassin said, this time with more certainty. He was ignoring the wailing demon. Lewis asked Simone to put him down in a chair, and when he settled, his mind wandered back to the fight. Sure, Xeik had been infused with demon powers, but the demon had spoken of his potential, and what he could have been.

“I underestimated him,” Lewis said after a moment. “All this time..I never realized just how strong he was.” Had the two gone head to head, one on one, Lewis would have lost. Instantly. Xeik was a force to be reckoned with, and it was only his good nature that held him back.

Even now, I’m still weaker than he is…

Angela was dancing away with the demon and baby talking it. “You took my precious Xeik from me. You got me locked away in my realm. I almost destroyed an entire city because of you. My precious rainbow one is all covered in blood.” She swung him around. “I will not unhand you. A bow?” She looked at him and smiled. “A bow it is.”

Standing up straight she looked at Lewis. “You forget something. Xeik is a dimwit. It takes spelling it out for him to get something. We spent five months on basic meditation. Yes, he has potential but it will never be worth as much as your talent. It takes a long time for him to cultivate his potential which is why I am patient with him. I don’t teach dumbasses.”

Walking over to Lewis she bent over to him, “You and Simone are incredible creatures. It is no longer just you but her too. You are one in the same. The same creature. One on one… You both would be able to take Xeik out if he couldn’t move fast enough to disable you both. However, if this demon was in his body and you had my abilities like now… Your potential grows beyond anything Xeik could do.”

Simone tilted her head, “You sound way too happy about that.”

“Yeah, if Xeik ever pisses me off I have good replacements.” She tied Xeik to a table and extracted the demon from him. “I’m not healing you for now. You deserve to feel hurt for NOT TELLING ME YOU WERE GOING TO HOJA!” She smacked Xeik’s broken ribs as he regained consciousness. “I got my freedom revoked because of you.” She yelled at him before she finally hugged the broken man to her. “Don’t ever do something so stupid ever again. Next time take Raine.”

“YEAH! Take me!”

It was such an odd dream that I was having. I remember a lot of pain, and then silence and darkness. I could hear her, my Goddess’s fury as she shook the earth, and then once more, silence. Then, more pain as he wormed his way into my mind, prying into my memories, feeding off of them. And then…more silence. It was the silence that hurt the most. Not knowing what was coming. And then…I saw you. Lewis, my friend…you and Simone coming for me. I could hear you as you fought…and then…

“Silence,” Xeik muttered as he opened his eyes. Pain flooded his mind and body. His ribs must have been broken, and he was positive that he had several fractures in his arms and legs.

“What…the hell!?” he said finally, gasping through the pain as Angela smacked him on his ribs. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?”

Lewis looked over from where he was sitting. “Short version…Simone and I are your replacements if you fuck up again.” From Xeik’s point of view, it looked as though Lewis had been in a fight for his life.

“Wait…Hoja? I was…I was in Hoja! I was just looking at the old haunts. ANGELA I WAS JUST LOOKING AROUND LIKE I ALWAYS DO! I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK PERMISSION TO LOOK AT THINGS!” Still, with the way he was feeling and the way Lewis was looking, something had gone down.

—

“Wait…so…what happened to the demon, then?” Xeik asked as Lewis and Simone finished explaining what had happened. “And…the guild?”

“I plan on tracking down every last member,” Lewis stated flatly. “I’ll make sure they burn. Raine can help if she wants.”

Raine peeked up and looked at everyone, “Oh? That guild? I found them all and made sure they got Raine's divine punishment! My lady gave me an order to purge the blight so I did! I can gate faster than she can.”

“You are a terrifying creature…” Simone spoke up and she shivered.

“I am a tool for justice!” Raine was doing martial arts poses. “I shall teach Xeik the way of justice.”

Angela was prepping to heal Xeik up and transfer her power back into him. The demon was squirming around in the form of a tiny insect inside of a jar. “That is the little vermin that did it. I’m going to make a bow for Lewis. We can come up with a name and everything. I hope you make him watch you fuck. As punishment. Feel the wrath of love!”

“Remind me to never piss off Angela,” Lewis stated to no one in particular as he stood up. The resonance was still healing him,b ut he felt as if he could at least stand.

Xeik stared at Lewis for a time, and his mind wandered back to what that mysterious man had said. That Lewis was an experiment. A failed one, at that. Perhaps it was merely the man trying to get into his head, a tactic that had worked more than once much to Xeik’s disappointment. That didn’t stop him from wondering that there might be some truth to that statement.

It would have to be something to discuss with Angela at a later point. After all, she was rather furious with him for going off on his own, so investigating something alone again was off the table, so to speak.

“I know I’m sexy, but please stop staring,” Lewis said as he walked over to Xeik, prodding his still broken rib. “I’m impressed you’re able to control the power of a Champion so well.”

“Impressed?” Xeik replied with a scoff. “You and Simone could do in minutes what it took me years to learn.”

“Yeah, but we don’t count,” the ex-assassin stated. “We just looped the energy until it made sense. That, and using it isn’t much different than using the resonance. Mirror magic is…well…special.”