Welcome To My Dark Side

Character 27 Look At Your Own Reflection

'A Nether outpost.' Lyria told herself quietly. Thinking she had fled from her unknown stalker, Lyria had decided against going to the Netherbane tavern and had instead opted to go into the Nether to somehow track down her counterpart without knowing where she was. Before she could do this though it meant that she would have to locate a nether portal that wasn't heavily guarded so that she could sneak through it. Luckily she had now found one. As silent as snow falling she landed in the tallest and nearest tree to the portal. The portal was only guarded by a few wither skeletons who seemed to be lightly armed. It looked like they had been sent to the Overworld to collect flowers presumably for potions or meals that required them. Lyria carried on spying for quite some time hoping that they would eventually stray away from the portal. To her dismay they did not leave because they were going through the piles of flowers they had collected and categorizing them accordingly before placing them in their respective baskets.

'Wait a minute. What am I doing? Everyone thinks I'm a traitor so I can just walk up to them and I'll be fine. Hmm I also have the advantage of surprise. Maybe I could take them out before they realise that I'm not on their side. I know I'll have only gotten rid of a few but it's better than nothing. At least I would have caused a slight nuisance to the Nether.' She thought. Now that she had a plan, she readied herself to jump out of the tree onto the unsuspecting skeleton below. Snap went the skeleton's skull as Lyria's sword went straight through the middle as Lyria dropped down onto the ground. The remaining two had heard her but they hadn't realised that their fellow skeleton had been killed. They both looked over to Lyria. "Ah Major Lyria you must have given him such a fright that he fainted." They both laughed as they still had not noticed that their friend's skull was shattered in two because they could not see anything unusual from the position they were standing in which was lucky for Lyria.

'Major Lyria. Major Lyria. Well it certainly has a nice ring to it.' Lyria smiled rather chuffed at the idea of being a major. The wither skeletons looked at each other before one of them asked her. "What are you doing here Major? I thought you were guarding the important bridge that links the Nether's capital with the Piglin Bastion along with the rest of the Nether with Lady Kaia. Which you ought to be doing with all those rebells around. Without it the capital will be cut off and severely isolated, forcing the army and any travelers to cut through the dangerous terrain of the Basalt Deltas." He exclaimed. 'Yes! I know where she is now thanks to him and I now have additional information about the Nether's transportation weakness and it looks like the Nether isn't as united as we think with a rebellion going on.' Lyria thought happily. The pair of wither skeletons were starting to become suspicious by her lack of answer but before they had a chance to draw their swords out of their sheevies, Lyria lunged at them with her sword slicing through them both in one swift move. With all of the wither skeletons dead she rushed through the portal so that she could finally begin to track her target.

'Where is she? That wither skeleton said that she should be here unless...she's up to no good again and disobeying orders.' Lyria puzzled as she paced up and down the bridge the skeleton had told her about having managed to locate it. The bridge itself was old and had clearly seen better days. Centuries of being crossed with little to no repairs ever being done to the bridge left it in the crumbling and cracking state it was in today. There was no one around leaving the bridge completely unguarded which left Lyria very confused. "Look who finally found her way to me." Lyria heard someone laugh from behind her. Turning around she saw Fractureverse Lyria standing at the end of the bridge. "It took you long enough. Honestly I didn't think you would even realise you were in a different reality but I guess this will be far more fun when I kill you since there can only be one Lyria in this reality." Sneered Fractureverse Lyria.

"No one's killing anybody!" Lyria shouted in response. She narrowed her eyes and extended her elytra blade as she readied herself into a fighting stance. "You don't even know the consequences should that happen. No! If anyone is getting rid of anyone then it'll be me when I send you back to that semi cursed reality of yours!" Lyria spat in anger. Fractureverse Lyria snorted as she began to limp over to Lyria by stepping onto the bridge. "I already beat you in a fight once and that lasted two seconds with you ending up unconscious so I sent you to my reality." Fractureverse Lyria scoffed in a boastful statement. "This time it's different. You don't have the advantage of surprise and I've learnt a lot about your weaknesses. I've even set it up so that you'll be imprisoned as soon as you enter back into your reality. I hope you like sharing a cell with your Commander Hilda." Lyria yelled, unlocking her hidden confidence.

Fractureverse Lyria stopped in her tracks as Lyria had played on her weakness. Her confidence fell away at the thought of being forced to spend time with her cruel commander. She was starting to become nervous now and she too extended her elytra blade and pointed it back at Lyria. "Huh I'd have thought with your new set of uniform they've given you a weapon to match your nether attire. I guess you only know how to fight with that particular sword." Lyria exclaimed, hoping to get to Fractureverse Lyria's underlying fearfulness, then she would not have to fight her which seemed like a much better option. Lyria froze when she saw her counterpart's worried look had been replaced by a smug grin and chuckled. "Looks like you walked right into our trap!"

Lyria flung her head back behind her only to see Lady Kaia standing at the open end of the bridge. She was trapped in the middle between Fractureverse Lyria and Kaia. Now it was her turn to be scared. She assumed that Lady Kaia would have a nether star and unlike herself, know how to use it which made her hidden advantage completely useless. "What's wrong? Sulking are we because it's not going to be a fair fight?" Fractureverse Lyria teased. That annoyed Lyria greatly. "At least I have the confidence to face myself!" Replied Lyria. Once again Fractureverse Lyria remained still as she understood that what Lyria had said had a double meaning and was uncertain of her own capabilities. Kaia on the other hand had had enough of all this stalling and chit chat and went for the first move.

Still facing Fractureverse Lyria, Lyria barely had enough time to dodge Kaia's scythe since she had not been paying attention to her. Seeing Kaia attack Lyria snapped Fractureverse Lyria out of her trance and she now joined the fight. She swung her sword at Lyria but she was able to jump backwards into the air. This frustrated Fractureverse Lyria for she was unable to lunge at Lyria again for she did not have an elytra and her newly learnt areomancy was not at a high enough level for her to be able to hover in the air for more than a few seconds. Lyria quickly realised that she would only have to fight Lady Kaia providing she remained in the air, however Kaia was doing everything she could to force Lyria back onto the bridge. Kaia's constant attacks from above would force Lyria downward to avoid being hit which then made her vulnerable to Fractureverse Lyria swinging her sharp blade below.

To Lyria's surprise she was well matched with Fractureverse Lyria and with the extra flight advantage she would have likely have beaten her. Unfortunately having a second opponent to deal with was more than she could handle. She had managed to get a few good hits on the pair but she had also received double the amount of cuts and bruises causing her energy to rapidly drain away. When she next landed back on the bridge she decided to stay on it to conserve energy. Kaia saw that Lyria was now currently standing on the bridge and dived downwards with her scythe engulfed in flames since her patience was wearing thin. The scythe slammed into the bridge causing a huge chunk of the bridge to fall into the lava below because Kaia had misjudged the distance in her impulsiveness. This gave Lyria an idea. If she could not beat the pair then she would make sure she went down with the bridge. Her plan was simple; get them to use their weapons against the bridge and get Lady Kaia to use the full force of her nether star against the bridge. There was just one flaw with her plan; she was the only one in possession of a nether star.

Lyria was successful in winding them both up and they both became so focused on trying to smash Lyria into smithereens that they were completely blind to the amount of damage they were doing to the bridge. Fractureverse Lyria's sword came from her left and she swiftly moved out of the way and smacked her own sword down on top of Fractureverse Lyria's making the sword's impact on the side of the bridge more powerful. Another part of the bridge gave way and both Lyrias had to step back to avoid falling into the lava. This gave Kaia the opportunity to grab hold of Lyria's elytra and throw her back onto the ground. Lyria rooted to the ground in shock, closed her eyes as she saw Kaia bring down her scythe. It looked like the end for her and it looked like the bridge was not going down with her.