Chapter 6: Better Days
Double-Take dragged herself back to her cottage, fighting to keep her eyes open. All of her energy was sapped from her body and the only thing keeping her moving toward home was the fear of being seen. She placed her hoof on the door handle, took a long, relieved breath, and opened the door.
A thunderous crash resounded through the cottage like a dragon's roar, Double-Take jumped back in reaction. She shouted a Changeling profanity as the resulting revelation slammed into her, a charging Minotaur of fear and threats. Someone had tied a tripwire to the door and rigged it to a sound trap. The last assassin. It had to be.
A bolt rushed from the shadows inside the cottage, narrowly grazing the Changeling. Double-Take cursed silently as she jumped around the building, adipokinetic hormones rushing through her blood. She tensed as she ran a hoof across her cheek, then relaxed. No blood, no wound.
A voice buzzed and droned out of the depths of the cottage, speaking in Modern Changeling. “A touch, Double-Take.”
Double-Take sneered in disgust. “Not a one, Perjury. So you were the one to send her team to their deaths.”
The assassin scoffed from the shadows. “I am not so ignorant as once I was. I was meeting with the other team leaders and only arrived in this pitiful town an hour ago. It was the discretion of my team that led them to their deaths.”
Double-Take closed her eyes and took a breath. Perjury liked to play with her quarries, often leaving only her blades poisoned.
“You're still concerned about that bolt, aren't you? Allow me to give you some comfort before you're death. No, it was not poisoned.”
“Then you are boastful still. The bolt otherwise drew no blood, caused no wound.”
“I said I was less ignorant, not less sporting.”
Double-Take rolled her eyes with growling huff. “Sport? I should expect nothing less from Chrysalis's elite. Devaluing life as points in a game.”
Perjury laughed. “Devaluing life? You should know. At least I have never drained a living soul of all emotions. Now, how did you put it again? A fate worse than death?”
Double-Take bared her teeth in a vicious, hating sneer, though she knew Perjury couldn't see it. “You have no right to speak of that. You don't know what I saw, what I had to endure.”
“No, and the only other soul that did understand is dust in an unmarked grave because of you.”
Double-Take magically loosened her sword from its hilt, raging and bitter blood beginning to boil.
“What was her name again? Ah, yes. Mirage. Double-Take and Mirage, the sole survivors of a mission gone wrong.”
The world faded as rage consumed. A magical aura enveloped the nearby window. With a buckle and a shutter, the glass shattered into a maelstrom of jagged and biting shards like vicious teeth, though not one even scratched Perjury. Double-Take rushed through the door and charged Perjury while the assassin was still dazed..
Perjury recovered, pulling her sword just in time to parry Double-Take's swing. Double-Take's blade bounced back harmlessly, Perjury barely recoiling. “I've always been better at magic and swordplay, Double-Take! You've sealed your own fate.”
“A touch!” Perjury laughed, spinning the bated sabre in her levitation spell.
“Fine, that's another point for you,” Double-Take conceded. “But that's the last one. I'll get you this time!” The young Changeling, still a child, jumped forward in an inexperienced lunge.
Perjury batted her opponent's sabre away, placing her blade in a favorable position and establishing priority. She sighed. “Lunges don't work. They're too easily parried and they leave you open for a reprise. Only use them when an opponent swings wide or if you have a clear shot and priority. Come on, I'll show you. Swing wide.”
Double-Take took a horizontal swing, only to feel Perjury's blade hit her squarely in the barrel. She looked down to see where exactly the touch was and saw it was perpendicular to her; a lunge. With a huff, she dropped to a sitting position. “I'll never beat you, will I?”
Perjury chuckled. “My dad is the guard captain, he and I practice all the time. You'll get better. You're already better than I was when I started.”
Double-Take, wide-eyed, smiled at her friend and rival. “You really mean it?”
Perjury smiled back. “I really mean it. Now let's get something to eat. You look hungry.”
“A little bit.”
“Well, come on then.” She extended her hoof and Double-Take took it... only to be pulled down to the ground. She felt a blade tap her mid flank.
“Ha! A point! That's two for me!”
Perjury laughed. “And thirteen for me.” Double-Take looked to see Perjury's sabre across her shoulder. “But I guess you had priority, so I'm still at twelve.”
Double-Take frowned, but giggled a few moments later.
Double-Take shifted into a more stable stance, focusing more energy into the magical grasp on her sword's hilt.
Perjury did the same, her magic glowing a cooler, greener shade. “It seems I have struck a nerve. Oh, poor Double-Take. She doesn't like to see her own hypocrisy.” She laughed in derision, taking joy in her mockery.
Double-Take made no response. Her eyes were locked on her opponent, dead and focused. She struck diagonally. Perjury swatted the blade to the side and thrust her own sword in reprisal. Double-Take jumped back, pulling her sword to her just quick enough to brush away Perjury's attack, narrowly saving herself from a venomous wound.
Perjury pressed her advantage, taking four swings in quick succession. Double-Take blocked each strike, albeit losing ground in the process. On the final swing, Double-Take spun her blade magically in an attempt to knock the sword from her opponent's telekinetic grip. The cool, green glow of Perjury's magic surrounded several shards from the window as the assassin launched them all forward with furious force.
Double-Take ripped her blade back to her as she jumped, her wings buzzing to life. She winced as one of the fragments passed through a hole on her back left cannon, clipping her leg and drawing blood. “Could have been worse,” she thought, acknowledging that luck alone saved her from a potentially devastating injury to her leg. She slowly flew back toward the door, keeping her eyes on her opponent.
“What, running away? The great Inquisitor Double-Take?” Perjury took to the air as well. “Oh, but I forget. You're not Inquisitor anymore. You're just a pathetic whelp. Abandoned by the Hive for treachery.”
“Abandon,” Double-Take muttered almost silently, tempering her raw rage into a finely crafted blade, reminding herself of her purpose. “Translated to Equine Modern, it has the second definition 'freedom.'” A small, faintly glimmering object caught the Changeling's attention. “I will wear that badge again.” In a sudden flash, she bolted to the side, dropping into a roll and stopping behind the sofa. A blade pierced the furniture, missing Double-Take's neck by a mere inch.
“I have the high ground, prey!”
Double-Take grasped the glimmering object in her hoof. She jumped forward and spun, throwing the previously discarded knife at her assailant. Perjury stopped the knife, but recoiled. Her stance on the sofa was hardly stable and Double-Take knew it. Within a split second of throwing the knife, Double-Take leaped forward with all the agility and speed she could conscript, thrusting her sword before her.
Perjury barely managed to brush aside the blade, but she felt the full force of her quarry's tackle as the two tumbled from the sofa, Double-Take landing on top, vicious shards of glass biting into Perjury's back. Their eyes locked for a moment...
Perjury and Double-Take sat on the branch of a giant tree overlooking the lake outside their home town. “Gorgeous day,” Double-Take said.
“Hmm?” Perjury mumbled, not really paying attention.
“I said it's a gorgeous day. The plants are in bloom for the first time in, what, two years? The wind is pleasant. And I don't know if I've ever seen the lake so blue.”
“Oh, yeah. It's nice.” Perjury's eyes were still locked on the opposite horizon.
Double-Take leaned forward, turning her head to look into her friend's eyes. “Hey, what's wrong?”
Perjury sighed. “It's nothing. I'm just...”
Double-Take cursed herself silently. “It's the anniversary, isn't it?” Perjury just kept staring. “You know that if you ever need to talk, I'm here, right?”
“Yeah, I know, but...” A few awkward moments passed before Double-Take finally placed a hoof on Perjury's shoulder and pulled her into a friendly embrace. In a moment, Perjury's composure broke and she began to cry, throwing her forelegs around Double-Take. “It's hard. It's hard and I don't like it.”
Double-Take just continued to hug her childhood friend. “Just let it out,” she whispered gently.
Her voice quivered. “M-mom hasn't been the s-same since Dad died, and... Mirror and I h-haven't spoken since the f-funeral...” She tightened her forelegs around the one insect to give her any sense of comfort in months, tears rolling down her face. “I just want my family back to the way it was...”
“I know. He was a great drone. I know that he's found fire in next world.” Perjury continued to shutter in her grasp, so Double-Take continued at a careful pace, her voice humming as gently as she could make it. “I know that family leave voids. Time's sands can fill them. They'll heal. We all die, eventually. So let it out. Just cry. Cry and grow stronger for the time we have left in the world.”
After a few minutes, Perjury finally let go and wiped the tears from her face. “I just wish that... I just feel so... I want to do something. Could we just do something?”
“Like... play a game? We could have a race. Oh, we could go get Distort and Shimmer and have a relay race.”
With a sniffle, Perjury wiped away a few more tears. “Yeah,” she quivered. “A race should be... just what I need.”
Double-Take reared her blade for a killing strike, but another aura enveloped the sword. Perjury mustered all of her magical strength in an attempt to rip the sword from Double-Take's grasp. Double-Take responded in force, blasting as much telekinetic energy at the sword as she had to use, and the weapon finally sailed across the room, clattering to the ground with a set of mutely ringing thuds. Perjury reached for her own blade, but Double-Take, perhaps in a thoughtless anger, magically threw it out the window. If Perjury didn't know where the blade was, she couldn't levitate it to herself.
So Double-Take unleashed all of her rage into a brutal series of punches as Perjury tried in vain to struggle free. The assassin, with each thunderous blow, could hardly react to the pain or her own outrage. She had to fight back, but ho- The sword. Double-Take, in her rage, discarded her own sword. And Perjury could see it. Her horn glowed as the blade flew through the air and the air whistled with the weapon.
The sword made contact within a moment, piercing Double-Take's armor and mid flank, blood gushing from the wound. She screamed in pain and rage, her shrill, echoing voice causing Perjury to wince.
“It's over, Double-Take,” Perjury muttered from a bloody and bruising face, coughing with the subsequent breath.
Double-Take looked into the assassin's eyes. In an instant, Double-Take struck like a venomous snake, sinking her serpentine fangs into Perjury's neck. Perjury uttered a pained, breathless scream as blood began to fill her throat. Double-Take, with the last of her failing energy, put her hoof against Perjury's face and reared backward, tearing two massive wounds across the assassin's throat. With a guttural, gurgling, muted scream, Perjury sputtered her last breath, her life draining with the blood from her wounds.
Double-Take fell to her side, off of the assassin's corpse. “Die first... and find fire...” she muttered, as the last of the world's light fled.
Double-Take knelt before Queen Chrysalis. “On this day, you, Double-Take, have been chosen to join my elite. You are now an initiate of the Shadow's Wings. Fly swift and hide well, child.” She felt the Queen's blade gently tap on her shoulder.
“By my honor, by my word, I will serve you until my dying breaths, O gracious Queen.”
“Rise, Blackguard Double-Take.”
Double-Take rose to her hooves and stood in a salute.
Chrysalis turned to the audience in the throne room. “It is a rare day when a new initiate is inducted,” she announced. “I give you that rare day!”
Cheers rang up from the crowd. A Changeling guard watched from the back, jealousy in her eyes. “How is it that she has outdone me?” she muttered. “I'm her better and her senior. She's good, but she's not Shadow's Wings material, especially if I am not.”
The cheering died down as Chrysalis rose her hoof to quiet the crowd. “Now, the matter of these 'Abandoned.' These rebels are no more than outcasts and rogues. We have long been aware of their presence, but they have not made themselves obvious. That is, until now. They openly defy me and threaten our nation!” A riotous opposition thundered from the Changelings in the throne room. “I will not tolerate their treason!” Cheers boomed again throughout the hall. “And they will soon see how grave a mistake their open treachery truly is!” The crowd erupted one final time.
Perjury stopped paying attention. She was just waiting. After the rest of Chrysalis's speech, Double-Take sought out Perjury. “Congratulations, Double-Take,” Perjury announced in all of the sincerity she could. In spite of her envy, they were still friends.
“Thank you, Perjury. For everything. You're the real reason that I even have this opportunity.”
Perjury forced a laugh, and Double-Take caught the feign. “No, you would have gotten here without my help.”
“Perjury, is something wrong?”
“No, nothing is wrong.”
Double-Take sighed. “You can tell me. I know that you're lying. What is it you're trying to hide?”
Perjury took a deep breath... and released all of her emotions in a single burst. “Why you? Of all the insects, why you? I'm your better with swordplay and magic. I've been a member of the guard longer than you have. Abyss, you even have a condition that makes shapeshifting useless for you if you're even slightly anxious!” She bit her tongue. “I didn't mean that!”
Double-Take closed her eyes. She was sensitive about her heart. “That's how you feel, huh?”
“No, Double-Take, I'm sorry. I'm jealous and confused, yes, but I didn't mean to bring up the heart condition. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
With a sigh, the newly initiated Blackguard let it go. “It's fine,” she muttered. “You're better than me, I agree. You're more deserving than I am and we both know that. But let's not let this ruin our friendship." She placed a sincere hoof on Perjury's shoulder. "Please?”
Perjury, after a moment, pulled Double-Take into an embrace. “Of course.”