Chapter 16   A Battle of Wits   author: Veyanne - yellow , Overlord - red , Blackguard - violet  

"I feel nothing towards him anymore." Kendra mused. "The hatred is gone."

She knew the overlord was still dangerous. She didn't care. She left her back open to him. If he was weak he would attack. She would kill him. If he was strong she would let him live.

The overlord could feel her attention shifting towards things that were not but were somehow possible. His gun was volatile enough to be able to explode. It immediately got her attention and he could see her leaping through the timelines towards the improbable outcome of his 'gun' imploding on firing. Then she backed away, noticing something was wrong somehow. 'She's good,' he thought. He lifted his hand and aimed at a point between her shoulder-blades. 'Let's increase the odds a little,' he smiled. Kendra turned and threw him a confident smile.

"Your little toys won't hurt me, you pathetic man!"

The overlord spoke to her while panting heavily, meanwhile pointing his gun at her throat.

"Where are the children, bitch? I'm counting to three and then... nothing for you!"

Kendra sighed, listened to him counting and then pointed her finger to him. Her smile was a bored one, but then it very slowly changed and she flickered her eyes. A voice spoke into her left ear.

Suddenly the two combattants seemed to vanish from sight. Blackguard almost pulled out of the shadows before he realised they were still there, just cloaked somehow. It was as if the air around them was, vibrating just a fraction faster than it had a moment ago.

"Must have pulled a phase shift on her, " he thought. "Maybe I can follow them, " he mused since he didn't want to miss the final outcome. He concentrated, worked a minor spell and was back in sync with the other two. Kendra, was visible, but the Overlord seemed to flicker in and out of sync with real time.

"Thank you, that was all the time I needed to complete the fase-shift."

She quickly turned around, but there was nobody there. She stretched her consciousness over the planes of probability, but he wasn't there either. Where in the hell did the fucker go?

The voice spoke to her again:

"Now are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

She turned toward the sound of his voice. There he was. He was so faint. There was very little human left in him. He was hard to see. She didn't let on. It's best to let your opponent believe he has the upper hand.

"Where the hell are you, moron!" she shouted. This was highly frustrating and she wouldn't stand for it.

"Right here..." the voice came from the other side. Then something brushed her thigh, but before she could grab it, something else prodded her lower ribs. She was getting furious now, but also scared. She couldn't remember ever having been toyed with like this. Her teeth clenched she screamed and clawed with her fists through the empty space around her. Suddenly her swift movements froze and she almost tumbled when it was immediately released again.

Blackguard chuckled softly. Kendra was having a bad time here, she was always used to having the upper hand in any situation and here she was with that power taken away from her.

In front of Kendra a tall man was standing. He was at least two heads bigger than she was and she barely recognized the pitiful broken figure she had seen lying on the ground earlier.

The Overlord suddenly came fully in sync with Kendra, but this was a different man. He was power and all that it represented at that moment. Blackguard grinned a feral grin, "this ought to get interesting, " he thought.

"Hi!" he said and he smiled.

"May I introduce myself? I'm called overlord. I believe we haven't met before?"

"How could he have forgotten?", Kendra wondered.

The woman looked at him with all the spite she could muster and ripped through the plains of probability.

"No need for that," the man said, "you're within my space now. Only one probability here and it's not yours to change. Or in other words, within my time-field, magic doesn't work."

Spoken like someone who has never studied magic. It worked everywhere. That's why it was called 'magic'. Still, it was difficult for her to deal with.

A chill crawled over her back as she somehow understood what he meant. She drew in her breath and her mind raced as she tried to find a way out. This was unacceptable.

"What now?" she asked to win time.

"Now? We talk!"

This was unexpected. The Overlord he knew would have beaten the information out of his opponent by now. And here he was holding palaver with his enemy. "Seems I may not know this new Overlord as well as the old one, " Blackguard thought. He concentrated on the man, information was the key to success and Blackguard would use whatever he could to succeed.

The man remained immobile. Only his mouth moved and his human eye, which changed from being amused to being very pleased.

"I understood you wanted me for something? Care to tell me what this is all about?"

Kendra slowly shifted her weight a little to the left.

"Ah, if you want to fight, please do so. But don't make any mistakes about your chances. You won't survive a physical encounter with my android body and your magic is, as I already said, absolutely useless in here."

His ego was enormous and bloated. Kendra knew how to stroke that type. She let him believe that he had her overmatched.

Her anger grew every second as she had to acknowledge he was telling the truth. Whatever she did, she always encountered the same blankness around them, a kind of impenetrable cage of improbability that fitted around the reality in which they were caught.

Every cage has a lock. Every lock has a key. Kendra sensed the lock. Her magic began to flow. It would be difficult to escape. She needed time.

"Well?"

"Fine!" she spitted.

"You want to know what's going on? I'll tell you, you murderous piece of shit!"

The overlord laughed out loud.

"Murderous? Me? And what would that make you?"

He'd bought the act. She knew she could buy all the time she needed.

He took a step forward and his face came close to hers.

"We're one of a kind, girl. You and me, we both serve Chaos."

Blackguard's head snapped up at the Overlord upon mention of that name. Did he know? Could he know? Or was he just engaging in a bit of hyperbole? If the Overlord truly knew of Chaos' existence as something other than just a metaphysical idea he might be more dangerous than he had originally thought. Placing a hand on his sword, he readied himself to kill this man should he reveal the truth about Chaos.

The man smiled is irritating smile and Kendra shivered as it suddenly occurred to her that she might actually die her and now. She, who was beyond death, who never considered the possibility of death catching on to her.....

 Thoughts of death filled her mind. They always did. They always filled her with fear. Fear made her fight like a wild animal. But now she felt no fear at all. It was strange to her. She wondered where it had gone. It was good that she was free from fear. She needed to concentrate to pick the lock on the fase-shift. In the meantime she would distract the overlord.

"You're ancestors killed my whole tribe you rotten, stinking, metal abomination!", Kendra shouted. "I swore an oath against your whole family! I swear you will all die!"

Maybe she was overdoing it. She heard the overlord laugh. No, that's what he wanted to hear.

"Do you know what it's like to see your entire family desecrated and killed before your eyes? DO YOU?!", Kendra expressed indignance.

"The only reason I live is to see men like you bled dry and burned.", Kendra felt the lock on the fase-shift loosen. She continued, "I rejoiced when I tore your body apart. I'll rejoice again when I draw Henos' heart from his body."

"He's a coward you know.", Kendra spat the word 'coward'. "And the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree."

The lock loosened once more and fell away. The Witch Queen felt her body filled with black magic once again. Her full power was at her fingertips, ready to use in the blink of an eye.

"So you'd better kill me now while you still can."

The machine smiled.

"That took you longer than I expected. I guess you needed to explain this to me. Thanks for taking the time."

His voice masked his disappointment with his technology. When he first tested it he thought it was the ultimate weapon against magic. Now he knew it could only buy him time. Still it would be quite useful for surprise. It had given him the chance to kill Kendra after all.

The form of the man seemed to grow dark and his voice suddenly laughed from afar.

"I should also thank you for sharing your weakness with me. But don't worry, I won't destroy you yet."

The dark shape flicked out of existence and the voice was now very far away.

"My father always told me:...."

Suddenly the voice whispered in her left ear:

"Never waste a valuable enemy!"

Then he was gone without a trace.

Kendra turned the key in the lock again. The overlord became visible. She smiled and whispered something in Witch Tongue. The overlord cocked his head. He heard nothing. He shook his head and muttered something about dreams.

The Witch Queen started to use her black magic to experiment with fase-shifting. She slipped in and out of time. She crawled through cracks in the fabric of the universe. She danced over ripples and eddys in the flow of space. She felt the wonder of her new found power. She reveled in the control she now possesed over the universe itself. She was even more wicked than before.

Then she spoke into the air, "Tell me what he knows about Chaos?"

She slowly turned towards Blackguard, now easily visible to her. Her eyes locked on his.

"I hope you didn't tell him anything."