In the middle of her rousing words, Emilie went limp and dropped to the ground. There was no warning, no sign of influence… she just ceased and fell.

“My Lady!” Krey gasped, dropping to his knees at her side. “Livia, get over here! Use your blasted white magic!”

“Right!” Livia shook off the shock and went to help. “I… I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?!” Krey nearly screamed.

“There’s nothing wrong with her! I don’t know what to do!”

Pippy put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Let me see if I can read her!”

Just as she was about to lay her hand upon Emilie, however, the hierophant and the others all blinked out of existence, and the grassy earth beneath her was suddenly hard, cold, metallic…

“What?!” Pippy blurted, losing her balance and tipping over, thankfully already relatively close to the ground. She flew to her feet and took up a stance.

A voice came from behind. “You would’ve had a very hard time piercing the fog of divine madness; be thankful I’m sparing you the trouble.”

Pippy twirled on her heel, spotting Lu Sen. “You! What is this place? What’re you doing to my friends?!”

“You’ll have to earn those answers, little girl.”

“Little girl?! Screw you, I’m nineteen!”

“The desperate objections of a little girl. I hope you fight better than you talk.”

“Why don’t you come at me and find out?!”

The shrineblade’s eyes darted around, inspecting Pippy. “Your weapons… they’re not typical.”

“Nope!” Pippy thumped her chest. “You face Pippy Vieira, Battlecaster Extraordinaire! Say hello to Doom and Gloom!”

“I see…” Lu Sen chuckled. “And you, Pippy, face Trick of The Light.” She drew her magicked katana slowly, savouring the look on her opponent’s face. “It has never had to clash with another blade to reach its target. None have been able to perceive its advance in the heat of battle. Will you be the first?”

“Never had to clash with another blade, huh? That’s cool and all, but…” she started bobbing up and down on her tippy toes, shaking her arms like a pugilist. “You can’t clash with what you can’t hit!”

Lu Sen’s eyes flared, and her grin widened as she exploded into motion. “Defend yourself!”

Pippy spun away like a ballerina, and struck back with a swing of her mace. Lu Sen threw her head back in time to dodge, but the look on her face told Pippy everything she needed to know; the shrineblade hadn’t expected her to even survive the first swing of her blade. That means I’ve already won, she mused.

Lu Sen quickly composed herself and rushed again, employing her full repertoire of practiced techniques; she was actually taking the fight seriously now that Pippy had managed to stay alive far longer than most others she’d fought up to now.

Pippy parried a vertical cut, then jumped clean over a horizontal one, spinning in the air head-over-heels. She became upright again at the apex of her jump, tapped the toes of one foot on the top of Lu Sen’s head, and then sprang into a second airborne jump, a ripple of red light spreading from under her foot as if she were springboarding off of it. She landed in a roll, using her momentum to get back to her feet. She immediately threw herself into a spin, firing a spread of black magic beads from her mace in Lu Sen’s direction.

Lu Sen parried them all with inhuman speed, and took pause. “You are impressive.”

“You’re pretty good yourself,” Pippy sneered.

“However, it’s time to end this. Survive this next attack, and I will concede defeat.”

This is it, Pippy thought. I win!

Lu Sen rushed toward her again… and then, in a flash of pink, split in two. Then a third appeared. They encircled her, all raising their translucent blades.

Oh… crap…

“Only one of us is real, Pippy. Would you bet your life on these odds?”

“I’m sensing I don’t really have a say.”

“Good; then you understand.”

“No, not really, I don’t know what the hells is going on— AGH!” Pippy tried to use both her buckler and mace to deflect the incoming attacks of two of the Lu Sens… however, they were just illusions. They certainly felt real enough… but what felt far more real was the very real blade of the real Lu Sen stabbing clean through her abdomen from behind.

A pink fog put her mind to slumber.