Ril and Evelyn stood facing each other in front of the porch of Gemma’s cottage. Evelyn had come out of the house with hair still wet, mere moments before. She was wearing different clothes than she had yesterday. Ril was also wearing different clothes. Considering his previous outfit, he had a significant upgrade. In Evelyn’s case it was more of a side grade.

Where yesterday she had worn sleek hunting leathers and furs to best hide in the undergrowth, today she wore a more combat ready outfit. High quality knee-high boots covered her lower legs, while form fitting pants dyed a pale blue with a white line rising up the side of each leg. She had a white undershirt peeking out from under a jacket that looked like it had extra padding in the shoulder. She was leaning on an oak staff that rose at least a foot above her own head. The gnarled grey wood seemed right at home with the rest of her outfit.

Gemma had ordered both of them to face off with each other. Evelyn looked relaxed. Almost bored, but Ril was less confident. He was not much of a fighter, as evidenced by his diminutive strength score. He preferred trickery and stealth over one on one encounters. Mostly because he tended to win more that way. Regardless, Ril stood nervously staring at the beautiful girl as Gemma began to talk.

“You’ve been messing up the trees in this forest enough, “Gemma started, indicating to Evelyn, who in turn nodded. “So, since Ril has been so kind as to join us. I have come up with a wonderful alternative to your target practice.” She continued with a grin.

Ril was getting a bad feeling about this. Evelyn’s bored expression, had morphed into an amused grin directed at him.

“To make it more fun, let’s make it a game. Whoever can knock the other to the ground first with either spell or stick shall be victorious.” Gemma continued, raising her hands magnanimously.

The bad feeling that Ril felt in his stomach worsened. He looked down at the short stick that he held loosely in his right hand. It was about three feet long, and looked like Gemma had walked to the nearest tree and snapped off a branch. It was still green, with a leaf growing out of the end. Ril plucked the leaf, and looked up at Evelyn’s nearly seven foot tall war staff.

Shit. He thought.

“Begin!” Gemma called, retreating back towards the porch.

Evelyn didn’t hesitate. As soon as Gemma had lowered her hands, she had raised her own. At the end of her hand a vortex of blue swirls that coalesced into a ball of snow and ice began to form. Evelyn grinned, then with a flick of her wrist the frozen projectile flew from her hand directly at Ril’s head.

Double shit.

With a yelp, Ril ducked. Cold wind brushed down his collar, and he shivered. Eyes wide Ril looked back up at Evelyn.

Another ball of snow came whistling towards him. Launching himself to the left, Ril felt a sting in his foot. The collision reoriented him, and he tumbled awkwardly onto the grass.

“Use your head boy!” Called the sadistic witch from her comfortable rocking chair.

Ril rolled back to his feet, another ball of snow narrowly missing him. My head?!, He thought to himself incredulously. Wait. I’m bonded now. I no longer only have to rely on my body in combat. I have abilities.

Ril reached to his chest and activated Mirror Image. Immediately, his form blurred and was replaced with two identical replicas. Both ducked as another snowball came flying towards them.

Evelyn stared in shock at Ril. She had clearly never seen an ability like this. She recovered quickly though, this time raising her staff in both hands and summoning two shimmering balls of frost.

Ril grinned as he reached for the pulsing pressure in his chest. He grabbed it and held it in an iron grip. Then he dashed to the right, commanding his clone to rush for Evelyn.

Evelyn immediately sent both of her projectiles screaming towards the clone. The ice passed harmlessly through the clone. One through the chest and another through the right eye. The clone blurred and seemed to collapse on itself as the snow reappeared through its back.

Yikes. She’s aiming to kill. Ril thought. He quickly resummoned his clone, and sent it charging at the girl. Continuing his mad dash to the right, Ril dodged a ball of ice mostly through sheer luck. Looking back, Ril saw his clone disappearing as Evelyn stood spreading her arms so that one pointed towards each of the Ril’s.

Ril wrenched at the pressure in his chest. Another clone spawned. This time he paused, and slowly circled Evelyn.

I need to be looking at my clone so that I can tell it to dodge when she sends snow at it. He thought. Then with a grin, he commanded his clone to charge. Barely a step behind he also charged.

Evelyn stood unconcerned, both hands tracking their respective targets, she sent ice flying. Ril strafed right. Commanding his clone to hop over the projectile that had gone low. It must have still gotten hit because Ril felt a twinge in his core. Barely two meters away from Evelyn, Ril lunged intending to tackle Evelyn before she could summon more ice.

Instead of panicking, Evelyn calmly stepped back and twirled her staff, and slammed it into Ril. Ril tumbled over the grass which was by now liberally covered is bits of rapidly melting snow. Coming to a stop face down, he groaned.

“Evelyn wins!” cried Gemma in an exultant voice from her throne.

Ril rolled over and accepted Evelyn’s hand as he slowly got back onto his feet.

“Very impressive Ril. Your strategy of charging directly at your opponent nearly worked.” Gemma was walking towards Ril. She reached for his chest and he felt a little tingle as the bruise from Evelyn’s staff faded.

Ril blushed. “It’s not like I fight people very often.” He retorted. “Also it’s not easy controlling the clone. I have to tell it exactly what to do at exactly the right time or else it just keeps doing the last thing I told it to do.”

“Hmm. That sounds like the Chromagnum is controlling your clone not you. Try summoning the clone.”

With a frown, Ril obliged, squeezing the ball in his chest. The clone appeared next to Ril standing with the same expression as Ril.

“Freaky.” Evelyn murmured as she studied the clone trying to find any flaw.

“Now try using the power more. Try to separate yourself from the clone. Make it so that you don’t breath in at the same time, and give it a different expression than yourself.” Gemma said.

Ril focused. Pushing deep within himself at the bundle of nerves that he associated with the clone. The clone changed its expression from a frown to a neutral expression. The breathing was harder. Ril pushed harder. The pressure in his chest rose. Becoming almost painful in its intensity.

Ril tried to offset the breathing of the clone. But every time he felt that he succeeded for a couple of breaths the clone snapped back to mimicking him exactly. Frustrated. Ril closed his eyes. Forcing all of his attention on the spot right behind his sternum. He squeezed.

Stars erupted behind Ril’s eyes. A wave of dizziness washed over him as he lost his grip on the slippery ability.

“I can’t do it.” He gasped. Clutching at his chest where the burning pain was oh so slowly fading.

“Try owning the clone. Become one with it. Take away it’s agency.” Gemma urged. Kneeling down next to him.

Scrunching his eyes, Ril focused inwards once more. The harder he squeezed the ball in his chest the more he seemed to be able to control the clone. But Gemma said to become one with the clone. Clearly crushing was not working. He needed more information.

Ril reached out to the ball in his chest with his mind, and started experimenting. Instead of squeezing, Ril tried first to move the ball from the center of the imagined space. The ball resisted. Unbeknownst to him, his clone began to fade slightly. Ril shoved harder, hoping for some result.

Suddenly the ball moved, flying away and disappearing. Ril froze, as silver letters appeared before him.

Would you like to forget the ability: Mirror Image

Warp cost: 1.5%

No! Ril immediately thought, frightened he had messed something up. Luckily, the terrifying prompt faded away and was replaced by the familiar sphere.

Taking a breath to calm his nerves, Ril tried to make the sphere spin. But it didn’t seem to work. Even if it did work, Ril realized he wouldn’t be able to tell if it was since it was perfectly uniform from all sides.

If I can’t move it, or rotate it, and making it smaller doesn’t work. What about bigger? Ril asked himself. Once more he reached for his core and tried pulling. Once again the strange pressure fluttered in his chest. Popping one eye open, Ril saw that he could do more with the clone, but still not any better than when he was crushing it.

Pulling harder, determined to solve this problem, Ril watched as the sphere slowly expanded. Then a strange feeling washed over him. He felt as if he was seeing double. Two pairs of hands with twenty fingers wiggled in his view. Excited. Ril gave one final heave.

The sphere expanded, seemingly eager to expand. It rushed past his view, and disappeared. Silver text floated in front of his eyes.

Congratulations you have upgraded Mirror Image to Mirror Form!

Create an illusionary clone of yourself whose actions you control

Ril had trouble focusing on the text though. He felt strangely detached from his body. His double vision remained. The second perspective was disorienting. He tried standing up from his crouched position and realized that he didn’t have only a single pair of legs to control. Instead of trying to control individual muscles he simply forced his will on his limbs.

Both Ril’s stood. Individually inspecting themselves. The first Ril looked up and smiled at Gemma.

“I think I did it,” he said

The second Ril had moved on from inspecting itself to wiggling his limbs.

“We did it.” said the second Ril. Pausing in it’s jiggling for a moment and looking up at the first Ril.

“There is no ‘we’. I did it. You are just the copy.”

“Of course there is a ‘we’. Just look at us. Together we can do anything.” emphasizing the point by waving its hands over its head.

“Stop that you look like a doofus.” he said, reaching over to smack the other.

“Run!” cried the second Ril, following his own advice a moment later.

“Wait! There are two of you now?” Evelyn cried thoroughly shocked by what she was seeing.

“Nah I’m just messing with you,” said both Ril’s simultaneously as the Ril that was running away stopped and started walking back with a grin on his face.

“Figured as much,” Gemma harrumphed. “Regardless, it was very convincing.”

“It feels strange,” said the Ril on the left. “It’s almost like my mind expanded and now I have an extra body to control.”

“So which one is the clone?” Asked Evelyn, looking back and forth between the two.

Both Ril’s grinned devilishly. Gemma laughed uproariously.

“This will be interesting! Go again.” she declared.

* * *

Ril maneuvered his bodies over to the starting point. He felt energized. With a cheeky grin, he started stretching with both of his bodies. Evelyn watched him bemused at his antics. Despite that, she looked much less confident than the first time they had sparred. Seeing two identical humanoids moving independently of each other made it seem that she was outnumbered.

“Go!” called Gemma.

Ril sprinted right, his clone sprinting left as they tried to surround Evelyn who had already started her hail of, well, hail. A ball of ice and snow wizzed above Ril’s head. He ducked instinctively, butt doggedly continued to flank the girl. Evelyn began backpedaling rapidly trying vainly to keep the Rils from surrounding her. Ril decided to take a gamble. Both he and the clone stopped their mad rush to surround Evelyn, and began approaching more cautiously. They were about 90° apart in front of Evelyn. Seeing the change in strategy, Evelyn stopped backpedaling and unleashed a spray of ice at the duo. Ducking and dodging, Ril managed to get both his real body and the clone around the ice without getting hit.

Feeling confident. He rushed her. His clone let loose a right hook at her face. Ril’s body in turn went low. Kicking out towards her legs. Evelyn for her part bopped the clone in the face with her staff, but failed to jump Ril’s kick. Her leg went out from under her.

Perhaps due to Ril’s inexperience with disabling kicks, or Evelyn’s expertise, she managed to retain her feet, backpedaling rapidly. Ril knowing that he missed his chance, backpedaled, a blob of ice clipping his shoulder due to Evelyn’s hasty response. Before he could get into too big of a disadvantage, Ril resummoned his clone.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked.

“Self taught mostly. Why?”

“You hit like a girl.” She said with a grin.

“So do you,” he replied after a moment.

Ril began circling with his two bodies. Evelyn began backpedaling, knowing that if she got surrounded there was no way she would be able to identify the clone before the real Ril managed to hit her. Ril was stubborn though. Doggedly running around her, dodging projectiles, as she backpedaled. Before he could push her into the forest, Evelyn stopped. Then in a rush, closed the distance to the real Ril. Ril instead of flinching gave her a big ol’ grin and charged recklessly directly at her. Evelyn froze. She whirled around and unleashed a barrage on the fake that was approaching at a dead sprint.

With a puff of displaced air, the clone disappeared. The real Ril took the final step and tackled Evelyn from behind. A cute squeak escaped her as together they tumbled to the ground.

They stopped rolling. Ril was above Evelyn, straddling her as she lay on her back in the wet grass. Her arms were trapped against Ril’s chest, the staff that she had wielded missing after the surprise tumble. They looked into each other's eyes. Her eyes were as large as saucers from surprise at being tricked so thoroughly. Both were breathing heavily and the breath steamed in the cooled air that surrounded Evelyn from all of the ice that she had been conjuring.

“Gotcha.” A massive grin split Ril’s face.

“You got me.” Her eyes flashed down, then back up to his eyes for a brief moment.

He rolled off of her, and collapsed onto the grass. Still breathing heavily, he stared up at the clear blue sky, shivering slightly from the cold.

“That was intense. I think I’m just going to lie here for a moment.” Ril said.

Next to him, a faint blush coloring her cheeks, Evelyn relaxed into the grass and joined him in looking at the sky.