A Crumbling Society

Part 3-28

"So, you couldn't fight me on our own?", I asked Starlight standing there.

A little bit of a laugh came from her, "of course I can, I just figured some backup would help", she retorted.

Trance uses telepathy to manipulate people's minds and play games with them, this was why I saw the team. The illusions of them faded away but only Starlight remained, it had been a trick. Still confused why Starlight was a part of this I continued my questions, "so it was you all along?".

"Of course, it was!", she stated with a half grin teasing me on her face.

My only question after that was, "why?".

"Does it matter why? You were clearly vulnerable, and I took the opportunity to make a deal".

"What deal was there to make? You're the leader, the "it" person for the whole entire world and you wanted to work with the villains".

"It's not so simple Carson".

"But it is, you show back up, pretending to be upset that your team separated. You used me to get to them, while blaming me for everything you've done behind the scenes this whole time".

"You don't have to whine about it, it's all over now".

This pissed me off being told I was whining; my voice rose a bit in anger. "I'm not whining, I'm merely stating the facts here. After I told you about my vision you thought it was a good idea to get everyone back together."

"Well, yeah, because I wanted to bring them out of hiding".

"Then, you sat there and made comments about how you failed everyone, you gave that speech to Phanta".

"I needed something to make it look like I was invested, something to convince you".

"All those questions, about magic, was that even genuine?"

"Honestly, I wanted to know more about your powers so that I could study you, find weaknesses".

"Liza, you said you wanted to see the magic world, you claimed to be my best friend, it felt so real".

"There's no need to get sappy, I definitely wanted to see the magic world so that I knew what I was dealing with. A world full of magic, so much to study and figure out so that one day I could take it too. Don't you see, you were the key to my world domination, without being your best friend I wouldn't have known anything. We sat for hours sometimes and talked about other heroes, that helped me capture them or kill the ones that were bigger threats."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and she kept going. My mouth was open wide as my jaw felt weighted, hanging wide open.

"How do you think the villains knew where we were the whole time? How did you think worm was able to actually find us in Greece?", she gave an implicative head gesture.

Remaining astonished I had no words to say back, I felt so sick hearing that I was used.

"You're nothing but a huge naïve idiot! It was so easy to sit back and watch you lead me to victory. I used every single thing you did against you as you thought it was right or benefitted you and those around you. Handing off the information to the Hexwitches about Valsyri was easy too. In destroying the society, you had known for so long, I was able to destroy the one you also left behind. You should have never come back, in fact, thank you for doing so. And thank you for killing the Warrior Legion for me, that saved me an even bigger headache."

Finding the strength, I finally made my remark, "I don't understand, I got everyone out of Xicot. We outnumber you and have made a lot of progress in destroying the Sentrys, and villains, and it still made a difference that I came back."