“And what have you got there behind you?”

Anne pitched her tone cheerily higher and pointed towards Tim, her head tilted and eyebrows raised in mock curiosity. The addressee tensed and readied himself to lunge at any second.

“Some sort of failed death knight? You can’t even make it with proper armor huh? And to think that advice of yours actually lead to improvements. Shame.”

A soft frown adorned her face as she looked at Tim. After a false sad head shake, sympathy soon bled out from her expression. Anne turned a contemptuous eye towards Rachel.

The new focus of her gaze flinched back a little. Anne smiled at that and took a step forward. A cursory glance was given along with a statement more fitting for a girl to address her misbehaving pet with.

“Ah, so you actually managed to escape. How did you free yourself? I remember quite clearly my undead standing guard over you when I left for that anomaly.”

Her eyes moved away from Rachel and landed on the form of John in Tim’s grasp. The happy go lucky tone returned.

“Ohh. That’s why.”

She increased her volume and inflection to mimic a merchant.

“How are you liking the new additions. My revised formula works so well huh?”

John glared hatefully at Anne.

“Oh, don’t be like that. Without the spider enhancements, did you really think you could have gotten away from my minions?”

John still held his glare, not giving in to her reasoning.

“Fine, be like that. I found some great stuff to use on you two. My favorite subjects.”

She pulled out a jar of familiar looking black liquid.

“I was a little late to analyse the explosion that released this, but this is some potent stuff. It was sapping out the mana from one of revenants touching it. It was sucking life out of the dead.”

She had an excited giggle at the end. The cutesy sound was cut off by the hissing of an [Ecto blast] hitting a tree trunk.

“That will be enough Creator. You are to take nothing and no one back.”

Anne narrowed her eyes at Olivia from her crouched position after ducking out of instinct. Indignation and hatred bloomed from her eyes as she held Olivia in her sight.

“You really do believe you can beat me huh?”

She spat angrily at the staff before schooling her expression.

“That removed manual override must have taken with it the logical reasoning I put in you. How do you plan on beating this,” She intoned as her convoy of death knights, death maidens and revenants emerged from their position hidden amongst the trees, “With that.”

She gestured condescendingly at Tim. He paid the insult no mind and reached out to Olivia.

‘Hey, Oli. Stop trying to talk to her. Just get over here.’

Understanding the implications of Tim’s words, Olivia quickly flew over into the folds of Tim’s bear robe.

“What’s this? You think a puny death knight like that can beat me? Hah, now that I looked at it more, the thing isn’t even a subpar death knight. It’s more of a ghoul that you stuck as much biomass as you could on. Pathetic.”

The taunts were again ignored. Tim focused on his own negative mana, building up a massive charge. Olivia, too, stayed silent, biding time for Tim’s build-up to transfer over to her. Secured that Creator, in her own hubris, has allowed the preparation to finish, Olivia stated in a monotone.

“You have already lost.”

“What?”

From Olivia’s head emerged a massive wave of green energy, an omnidirectional pulse passing over the entire clearing and the woods beyond. The energy passed harmlessly over the living beings, leaving only a small green haze upon their being. The undead suffered much more. The green haze adhered much more heavily on their bodies and, instead of just lingering, seeped deep into them. The effect of the infusion was apparent when most of the undead simply collapsed and Anne herself clutched her head in pain. The red hue characteristic of the undead began to flicker and dim. A new shine of green began to emerge, interspersed between the fluctuations.

“So this.”

Anne sneered at the conflicting powers clashing around her.

“Was your plan huh? Using your own link to me and my creations to try and overload me.”

Anne’s pale white face darkened with winkles of focus as symbols manifested within a hidden hand while Olivia continued to work her plan. Tim was remaining still, continuously channeling a small part of his mana over to Olivia, silently lamenting the fact that he could not output more of his vast pool. With the, in Tim’s opinion, suboptimal current of mana, Olivia was nearing complete usurpation of Anne’s hold on her undead and even her zombified body.

The process was suddenly halted and Anne was grinning ear to ear.

“Two can play at that game, tool.”

Another pulse was released from her hand, a red to counter Olivia’s green. Anne’s attack did not indiscriminately target all around, focusing solely on Olivia and Tim. The ex-humans bracing for impact suffered no noticeable damage, mentally or otherwise.

Olivia was another case entirely. Her mind was immediately assaulted with numbness. Her goals and focus were inundated by an intense wave of pain lacing through her consciousness. She could only handle so much before the pain radiated out in a pained scream reverberating through the connection and into Tim’s hitherto quiet and focused thoughts.

The jarring reaction prompted Tim into action. He launched himself forward, intending to attack Anne. A death maiden intercepted and pulled her up and away. The revenants and death knights advanced. Anne prepped a spell. Tim looked around the clearing, studying his predicament.

The two humans have long ran away, too afraid of the fight to stay. Further looks at Anne’s forces told him that fighting was not their immediate goals, death knights, death maidens and revenants all stopped.

Their practiced plan failed, a shortcoming Tim placed on himself for his inability to support Olivia further. Bitter with defeat, Tim grabbed hold of Olivia tightly with his right arm, dug the blade of the left deep into the ground and lifted. The resulting shower of dirt and debris flew towards Anne, blocking her way and obscuring her vision. Impromptu smoke screen lasting so long, Tim had to choose between trying to find and helping out the other two or just beating a more secured retreat with just him and Olivia.

‘They abandoned us immediately.’

He did not hesitate and simply dashed right out of the clearing in the direction he remembered coming in from. There was surprisingly little pursuit. Tim turned his head back to notice only a smiling Anne. She only dusted off the bits of dirt that managed to hit her through the cover of the two now present death knights by her side.

******

His path ahead soon grew completely dark, the fire lighting his way from behind now put out. He carried on running at super human pace for another minute. The pain of prolonged strenuous activity created by the cracks of his legs was wholly ignored in favor of getting Olivia to safety.

The long shadows of stony spires they departed from in the morning were visible again. Now at what he considered to be a safe distance, Tim stopped. His legs now felt nothing but pain, their proprioception all but drowned out by the burning. Not knowing which way was up, his legs had to be supported by his sword. Olivia also took the reprieve to discuss their oversight.

‘We. I have severely underestimated Creator.’

‘Yup, that we did. So what do we do now. I’d love to just resume heading back to Brandon.But I know well that you are not letting things go like this.’

‘Yes, I have no intentions of foregoing such an opportunity.’

‘Alright, let me just. Get my legs settled for a bit. And you are definitely not going with me. Whatever she did was clearly bad. We had the drop on her too, so she is probably prepared now.’

‘I can still provide you with supporting spells.’

‘That is not worth risking things. I will get things done. For you and that soul to have peace, alright?’

‘I still insist on my participation. I am the only one capable of tracking down Creator.’

‘No, we are having none of that. We already have a good idea of where she is. She probably took John and Rachel and I can smell living people easier than undead. So I can deal with wasting time tracking them, but I cannot put you in harm’s way again.’

‘We cannot afford a second to waste. Creator could simply flee like previously and continue her reign of terror elsewhere. Can you truly hold yourself responsible for the lives that could have been saved? Furthermore, I am perfectly capable of defending myself.’

‘I know you can. But not against her, the one that quite frankly knows more about what you are than me. And I don’t care about the possible deaths if she escapes, you are still not going.’

‘How could you possibly say that? Are the morals you have taught me lies?’

‘No. It’s just. Urgh. They might not die at all. There are people out there who will stop her. And people will die anyways from other reasons away from us. But you. You are here with me. You matter more. You, I care about. You are the one most likely going to be hurt or out right killed if we go in now.’

Before Olivia could give a retort, a wave of static sounds traveled through their channel. Olivia froze in place. Tim was already thinking of the worst when she moved again, confirming his fears. She rose not to face him, but to face where the mountain was. The pit in Tim’s proverbial stomach would have pierced it if he had a stomach. Instead, he immediately walked over to follow Olivia, trying to keep up with hurting legs. Fortunately, her pace was subdued and, as he thought further on what Anne had said earlier, most likely intentionally so. The small tugging from Olivia, a subconscious nudging for him to follow confirmed it for him. Anne thought she now controlled him too. With Olivia floating lazily ahead, Tim walked steadily, mind split between thinking up a plan of attack and ignoring the pain his legs still radiate. Neither of the tasks were successful. He knew well enough Anne’s supposed capabilities from Olivia, just not her actual capabilities. Olivia’s current state a testament to that. The pain was still not going away, his early efforts’ ramifications refusing to free him. He looked back to the dazedly flying Olivia, another worrying question worming its way in his head.

Is Oli alright?

The follow up answer came immediately.

Of course not. Damn. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Tim rambled out again and again to himself, worry building up by the seconds. His steps continued to be made mindlessly. Eventually, Tim forced his thoughts under control.

Need to be there for her. I can’t be freaking out like this. She is fine. Will be fine. And will be back with me once things are taken care of.

His footsteps firmed along with his resolve. His mind more at ease, Tim took better notice of his current state.

The only other time his head was free of a small trickling of emotions that was not his was when he first arrived here, tearing through undead in a dreamlike haze. Olivia’s constant presence was calming, a necessity given how the only sentient contact he has had for the last ten years have been only her and sometimes Brandon. The silence now was jarring. The woods much darker and colder than before. He usually would be bringing up some silly thought he had on the day and Olivia would be there to have a good talk with him. Now he was left with speculations on how to get Olivia back. His initial brute method of ripping out any offending parts will not be so lucky anymore. The recurring thought that he might have irreparably damaged her then came again. Tim squashed it, like his worries from before, without a second’s delay.

Olivia would be fine

The mantra played itself in his head again. He would just have to beat out the method to wake her up again.

Tim’s state of loneliness only lasted so long. From the trees beside him came two revenants, Anne’s escorts for the two. A rustling up above alerted him of more company. Two death maidens were phasing through the canopy, passing with slight resistance through the leaves. Their faces were turned down on him, mouths open and ready to send concussive blasts of sound down.

Tim considered the small unit of guards. The revenants were now walking right next to him, one slightly in front of him more focused on Olivia and the other staring at him. He swung out his hand a little too much when a small tree came up in his path. The plant was pushed aside smoothly and his arm carried on with its momentum, impacting the revenant. The intentional ‘accidental’ hit pushed the creature back, nearly knocking it off its feet. Sensing a possible attack, the two death maidens blasted Tim with twin pulses of sound. He took the hit and crouched down. The pressure soon let up.

Tim walked on in faux mindlessness, the order Anne gave through Olivia seem to still stand. The readied revenants primed to pounce on him with sword and spear returned to their place beside him. Tim got what he wanted. The light hit on the revenant told him of their resilience. The sound blasts’ intensity were remembered and referenced to other things he has faced. The minions posed no threat. Tim spent the remainder of the trip formulating possible plans of attack. Those did not vary too far beyond a sudden charge straight to Anne when he sees her. The details of how he might question her or hold her hostage for Olivia’s freedom were the points he lingered on. The shock factor must be enough to have her forget she could pull the reverse on him with Olivia. An, as tim would consider it, iffy scenario.

Other possible routes he could take were equally “iffy”. He could just charge with excess power and immediately end Anne. The instant attack will take away any time for her to react and give him the relief of just ending her painlessly, a monster deserves that at least. The catch would be that her death might just close off his only door to bringing Olivia back. It was the debate between these options that occupied Tim’s mind when he stepped onto a smooth rock and lost balance.

His fall was halted with the sword and Tim looked up to view an ominous mountain. Several pockets of fire lit up its side, highlighting the entrances they came from. The nearest one off to Tim’s right, lightly hidden by a large boulder, the light escaping from it forming a crescent hugging the rock’s contours. They were not headed there. Olivia turned left. Tim followed her up the side of the mountain, careful with his footing to avoid anything too weak to handle his weight. They were a third of the way up when Olivia stopped.

In front of them was not one of the orange glowing entrances, just straight line of bushes. The ground rumbled and the bushes split down the middle. An entrance opened up, large fingers grasping either side of the door. Olivia floated on in. The death maidens dropped in Tim’s path before he could follow her in, their heads still locked onto him. Tim waited for the revenants, expecting them to act like the maidens and walk ahead of him. They just stood there. Tim felt inappropriately awkward and moved on in.

Pass the entrance, he saw the shadows of the two dead cyclops holding the door. Further down the tunnel they went, Tim struggling to see things as his night vision still needed some light to work. He bumped into multiple walls and corners. His company seemed perfectly fine moving through the twisting corridors, themselves moving seemingly on autopilot after passing a certain threshold. Tim’s blind escapade only lasted so long and they soon turned to a substantially larger corridor with blue patches of moss offering light. In it were rows after rows of standing corpses. They were clearly inactive, lacking the red glow characteristic of reanimated bodies. The hextet paid them no mind and continued on.

They ascended a stairway hidden in the left corner of the body storage. White light was spilling out onto and highlighting the steps. Tim was a little blinded once he was at the last steps, the fully illuminated room a stark contrast against the almost pitch black conditions his eyes have adapted to. Spots leaving his vision, Tim almost did a double take. The interior of the room he was now it was not unlike what his vision of a noble’s room. Instead of the the uneven and broken up patches of rock that counted as walls for the path he just walked, there were actual walls to look at here, lined with a rich red wallpaper with flowery gold patterns interspersed within. In the center of the room and off to his right was a decorated bed, the frame a deep polished black with golden etchings of flowers near its legs, its headboard and footboard beautiful sculptures of ivory flowers, its sheet a pristine white that was almost glowing with silver threads sewn in a criss cross over it. Opposite the bed on the left wall was a pure white vanity, the only other color on it, the reflective silver of the mirror and the black handles of three drawers on either side. On the left of the vanity was a tall bookshelf that was more for cosmetic than function with its vine bedecked structure housing a singular book. One that looks too flat and large to be anything but a children’s picture book.

Tim’s heavy clawed foot descended onto the brown carpeted floor as he made to follow Olivia through the room. The door opened out to a narrow corridor. Olivia turned right and Tim made the turn to follow. Mid turn, he caught something in the corner of his eye. Two paintings decorated the wall he entered the room from. One the right was what looked to him like a great conflagration with a large shadow of some sort that tapered off to a point in the background. The left has a much more mundane painting, a family picture of father, mother, son and daughter, all dressed in fancy looking clothes. He did not have the time to clearly see the faces and was soon ushered off by the revenants. What he did manage to see was that the family was blonde. The knowledge that Anne had a family curved his own determination to end her reign of terror a bit. Maybe if he just captured her and bring her back to them, sense can be talked and the soul she overwrote to create Olivia could be put to rest with another means. He did not have anymore time to ponder on the new discovery and how to best resolve the situation. From in front of him came another door and from it came a greeting.

“Ah. You’re finally here. Come in. Come in.”

One of the death maidens phased forward through Olivia and turned the handle. Olivia went in and the door was held open for Tim and the rest. Tim was welcomed to the love child of a butcher’s shop and a mechanic’s garage, all held together by necromantic runes. Hanging off the ceiling in a circle around the room were ten corpses of various species of monster, under them were even more limbs and organs. On the back wall were shelves after shelves of books, jars, skulls and strange devices. He could even spot more common place items such as a ladder and a few buckets. On the left wall was what looked to be an operating table with countless runes carved on and around the object. There were signs of it being used recently in the form of blood splatters and bits of meat and bone lying on it and its vicinity. On the right was much more sanitary set up, a “U” shaped workstation with vials, test tubes and bony helping-hands on it. Anne herself was in the center of the circle of corpses working with a necromancer’s version of an automatic car assembly. Six large bony arms surrounded her, holding either parts or drawing down simplistic runes for her. With her at the center of it all was a twisted ball of fur about her size with sharp pieces of bone sticking out. She ceased her working, seemingly satisfied with what has been done, and turned to her guests.

“Ah, I thought I wouldn’t be ready before you arrive. But I guess we both can get a bit ahead of ourselves.”

She giggled lightly at her own pun and turned to Tim.

“Move over here,” She ordered.

Tim complied, taking the chance to slowly build up a charge of his mana to rudimentarily buff himself for a moment. That moment never came. Tim reached where she wanted him to be, three steps in front of her. He was about to take the extra step that would put him in range to swing when from behind her, in the bony assembly that he overlooked, came a flying ball of fur. It expanded into four patches held together by digitigrade legs. The force of the throw forced Tim back a step and attached the patches onto his four limbs. From his back came another impact. Tim’s four limb were completely wrapped in the patches of fur. Tim realised just how much he has tunneled on Anne when from where he was standing on emerged two half spheres studded with multiple gems in varying shades of green. Tim’s four limbs were stretched out, his legs splayed towards the two points on the floor and his arms pulled upwards and away from his torso. Tim tried struggling, but found any force he generated from his body being dampened immediately as they touched the furred pads on his appendages.

“Gotcha. I knew you weren’t so mindless. Tool, you tried making an ally didn’t you. Can’t really stand bossing people around. Just had to call all my other minions your siblings. I can tell you now. I made you and all. Though you can’t really hear me now, can you?”

She tapped lightly on Olivia’s nasal bone, a playful tap on the nose had the two been regular people. She turned back to Tim.

“You did a really good job on this one. The mana storage is amazing, I can feel it from here. Though,” she stepped a bit closer and tapped Tim’s head, “You gotta make it have more processing power up here. It just followed you like an idiot when I had you transmit that small bit of intent.”

Tim increased his struggles, but found only a slight part of his efforts affecting his left arm. The little twitch of the armed arm had Anne take a step back.

“My, that’s a nifty sword. A mana eater. A really well made one at that. Hmm?”

Anne moved her eyes across the weapon and happily praised Olivia.

“You even got your hands on a weapon like this, tool. I must say, you are definitely the most accomplished of all my creations.”

She held a stare with Olivia for a moment before sighing.

“This is getting old rather fast. Sure you can hear me in there, but no talking back just takes all of the fun out. I can’t really fix this either. You removed most of the stuff I still had on you. So just a full takeover like this is possible.”

She sighed again.

“Welp. We still have your little project here to look over.”

Tim settled for glaring as hatefully as he could after his thrashing has resulted in no visible result.

“Oh, Don’t give me that look. I know your mom taught you to hate me and all that, but now I can make you so much better. For starters, I can definitely make you a lot more symmetrical.”

Anne began her operation with a basketball size ball of mana gathering in her palm. The gathering of particles changed slowly from a pure blue to a sickly green and symbols and patterns began to manifest within it. With her eyes still closed in concentration, Anne pushed the ball of energy into Tim’s chest.

She eagerly waited for a response, bouncing on the balls of her feet for when the runes will emerged again all over the undead construct’s body. Nothing happened.

“This is definitely peculiar. The [Undead deconstruct] should have separated the parts,” she remarked, a surprised rise to her voice.

Anne rubbed a hand on her chin before shrugging nonchalantly, her words falling back into a bored rhythm.

“I supposed we will have to get a bit more hands-on with this.”

Anne summoned another ball of green mana, this coalescing into a much more violently pulsating [Ectoblast]. The shot impacted Tim’s head and blew his bear skull helmet clean off, revealing the deformed skull underneath. With better lighting on Tim’s looks, Anne could not hold back the insult.

“Yep. You definitely need to work on making things slightly symmetrical, tool.”

Her hand poked lazily at the lumpy parts of Tim’s head while beckoning over a revenant.

Fingers again went poking towards her own undead creation.

“Could have at least made the jaw fit like this one. Come on, any spell to summon things can shape things to look stable. Did you run out of intact skulls and had to mash things together? And what is even with the snake?”

She jabbed a finger at the appendage, only to jerk it back when Tim tried to bite her with his only freed ‘limb’.

“Feisty, aren’t you,” She smiled, small thin lips stretching over gradually expanding and sharpening teeth. ”

Well let’s see how you like these.”

Anne fired continuously upon Tim, walking around him to reach better angles. [Ectoblast] after [Ectoblast] impacted his body. The bear’s body was soon reduced down to the singed edges of the areas covered by Tim’s glowing furry cuffs. The imagery would have had Tim shaking in repressed giggles had he been in a different situation. The quick blasting removing most of the obstruction, Anne continued trimming what she could of the covering around Tim’s wrists and ankles with an [ectoblast] held steady within her hand.

“Alright, that should clean things up. Now I just need to crack this.”

She tapped on a piece of TIm’s cracked flesh, a soft thud sounding out. She did it again, this time with a visible ripple of mana appearing from the point of contact.

“Wow. This stuff is hard. Though not mana obstructing. So whatever stopped my spell is deeper.”

Anne poked at one of Tim’s exposed cracks. The action elicited a flinch. Anne smiled silently.

She walked an entire lap around Tim, inspecting his various parts again, before calling for one of the revenant.

“Get me the mana infused ink. We are gonna need a lot of that.”

The revenant left and Anne walked back to the back shelf. She came back with a pen of sort and began to draw runes across Tim’s broken skin. She was half way through his front when the revenant returned with a chest on its shoulders.

“Just put that down,” she waved distractedly at the space next to Tim, “We’ll get to the fun part soon enough.”

The fleeting smile that appeared before she focused back showed just one too many teeth.