To Rescue a Villain

Chapter 44

"Mary," Jala whispered before yelling my name a second time, causing me to stop desperately wiping the blood off my body and turn toward her.

"What is it?"

The main character pointed to our right where a second door had just opened. It was smaller than the entrance we'd used and had been partially hidden by the mist so I'd failed to notice it.

After wiping the blood off my eyes, which were starting to sting, I finally spotted that weird cloaked figure from earlier standing in the doorway, his body silhouetted by the light and smoke. Both hands dangled at his sides like a mannequin and he wasn't bearing any weapons, which was unusual.

"You killed her?" the soldier asked, their voice not as high as I'd thought and muffled by the mask covering their mouth. He walked toward me and gingerly pointed to the dead body at my side.

Before I could stop myself, I cast one last glance at the body and covered my mouth at the sight. A chunk of flesh on the side of Zora's head was gone and the blood was still pouring out. Her eyes were open wide and staring at the wall, giving the impression that she was still alive.

"She was counting on my protecting her, which was a mistake" the person told us, glancing at the others before focusing on me once more. "Now you've killed both of my mothers."

"What?" My heart could not have jumped faster than it did at that moment. "It can't be." I started toward the soldier, reaching a hand out to lower the hood covering their head but they brushed my hand away.

As soon as they touched me I realized who it was. Their stature and voice had deceived me into thinking this soldier was male but it was a woman, or rather, a girl.

"Don't!" Jala warned me but it was too late.

Without warning, the girl grabbed my hand and wrapped it around my back, disabling me. I didn't fight back just in case she was who I thought she was but doing that was a mistake.

After holding me steady, she used her other hand to create a small knife out of thin air and drove it toward my back, planning to drive it through the middle of my spine. As soon as I realized what she was doing, I shoved her away with my powers and teleported across the room, joining the others.

"Who is that?" Odette asked as I clung to her, breathing heavily.

I gulped. "I think it's Polly," I whispered.

Ace and Jala armed themselves but Maddox chose to back into a corner instead and watched from the sidelines. I tried to shoot him a questioning look but had to return my attention to the girl before she could reach us.

"I think I can handle her," I told my companions. "We're both Valdis so our powers should balance each other out."

"They won't," Di informed me. "Not for long. She convinced her father to let her have the stone and she's used it to make herself more powerful."

"What? I thought I told him to let her have a normal childhood. Why would he turn her into a soldier like this?"

"She did it of her own free will," Di told me quietly. "Once Zora told her about your murder she became determined to avenge you and begged him to let her."

"Why?"

Why was this Polly so different from the last version? The last Polly had been weak and manipulated. She had hated Dark and wanted to see him die. This version of Polly hated Jala and Ace instead. How had one event created a completely different person?

"That mask connects her to this stone," Di continued, making the artifact shine even brighter. "If you disconnect it or rip off her mask, you'll greatly weaken her...or kill her. Probably kill her."

Jala took in this information, then nodded in agreement. "Mary." She grabbed my shoulder confidently. "You need to distract her while we three grab that stone, okay?"

"No!" I couldn't let her die. "I can find a way to disarm her."

She shot me a look of doubt.

"I can! Trust me, Jala. Please just give me a chance."

She hesitated. "If things go sour, I'm pulling the plug."

I nodded, biting my lip nervously as they stepped away and allowed me face my daughter alone. While we'd been talking she'd materialized two blue swords out of thin air, one in each hand, and was swinging them around to intimidate me. It was working. My powers were still rusty.

She struck first.

I watched her jump off the ground and zip toward me, her swords poised to strike, so I turned to the right and pulled a panel offthe wall to defend myself. It hovered in front of my face and I grunted when her swords dented it.

"You can't hide forever!" she yelled before flying higher and zipping forward again.

As she approached, I pulled out five new panels and layered them around me like a box. She went straight for the top and shot through it, hoping to crush me underneath, but I had already teleported to the other side of the room.

When I saw her crash into the panels I couldn't help but chuckle as she climbed out, looking bewildered. She looked so baffled by my disappearance.

Growling, the girl finally pulled off her hood to get a better look at me. Doing so revealed her buzzed hair, which had a fancy M engraved on it, and her eyes of fury. After getting a good look at me, she scrunched up her nose and hovered toward me.

It hurt that she hadn't recognized me. Three years, a haircut, and make up must have made me look like a completely different person because she wasn't even hesitating to kill me.

In the alternate tale, she had (according to theory) ended up killing her mother or at least been part of it. As a result she had become insecure and, since no one would want to blame themselves for such a thing, she blamed her father for everything and ended up hating him.

The Polly standing before didn't blame herself for anything. She just felt hatred for the men and women who had murdered her mother. She had put herself in danger to avenge me. It was awful.

I needed to tell her.

Instead of creating another layer of protection, I grabbed her with my powers and held her steady, close enough to see me but far away enough to keep her blades at bay.

"Polly!" I yelled over the insults she was throwing at me. Either her voice had gotten a lot deeper with puberty or that mask was doing wonders to her voice. "Polly! Listen to me!"

"I have no reason to listen to a murderer," she hissed. That cute child I had seen three years ago was gone. She was now replaced with a feisty, blood-thirsty teenager. "Release me or I'll see to it that you die in the slowest way possible."

I paused my spiel about being her mother and dropped my jaw. "You can't criticize me for being a murderer and then threaten to kill me. That's not how it works."

"Gee thanks, Mom," she answered sarcastically, completely unaware of the irony.

"Polly, listen to me, will you?!? I am your—"

Polly suddenly released her swords and let them vanish into thin air, replacing them with a small ball of energy that blew up in my face, stunning me long enough to let her escape.

As soon as Jala saw me fall on my back and release Polly, she rolled her eyes and aimed her shotgun at the glass case. Ace grabbed her arm to stop her but she shook him off. "I'm tired of waiting," she stated and fired. 

[Double gasp!]