“Alright, that was really, really fun. I killed the big guy, stole his magic, and learned about some vague prophecy that says all life in the universe will be destroyed because of my actions. So that’s cool.” They blinked at me, and I snickered. “Obviously I don’t actually plan on having the universe dead. I honestly don’t think the prophecy really means anything. Or at least, I can probably subvert anything it does mean. I’m pretty sure they were just hallucinating.”

They still looked a bit confused. “Ah, that makes… perfect sense, I’m sure,” remarked Clary. “Prophecies and hallucinations. Very sensible.”

I started looking around. “I’m thinking we should move on now, find the next room. I found mention of something, but I’m pretty sure it’s something we can investigate after we get the artifacts. The next room should be the last one, and then we can get all the wonderful items that were apparently awesome and powerful enough to be hidden away here. They’ll definitely let me accomplish my goals. Anyone see an exit?”

Clary shrugged, and Malk said, “No, actually. The only door is behind us and it still leads to the previous room.”

“Weird. What are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

As if in answer, all of the lights in the cathedral went out.

I turned around, and watched as the room descended into darkness, dim lighting coming from an undiscernible source, much like other spots in the dungeon. Then, the windows shattered inward, glass shards flying to land amid the corpses. Behind the windows there was nothing but inky blackness… and then that blackness began to move, flowing into the cathedral, swirling around, forming a whirlpool, a maelstrom, a well of darkness.

And from the center of that well, a shadow rose, and its form began to solidify.

I was shocked at the result; not just a shadow, but a Shadow.

Me.

Or at least, something very similar to me. The weird well version of me was different in several ways. First, she had no eyes. Her eye sockets were just black pits of malignant darkness that seemed to hint at untold terrors. Her hair, too, was gone, replaced by a wild mane of darkness. Oh, and she was naked. Tendrils of darkness covered a few key areas, but most of her skin was uncovered, revealing several markings here and there, strange runic tattoos.

She grinned, revealing sharpened teeth.

Nonchalantly, I asked, “So, who are you? And if you’re going to give me some silly, ‘I am you’ answer, what should I call you?”

The other Shadow laughed, and said, “I am what you will become, and I am the darkest parts of what you are now. You may call me Mirror, for I am the shadow in the mirror that shows your darkest self and mocks it.”

I nodded at Mirror, and asked, “So, what’s going to go down here? Are we going to fight as some test of my power, do some mirror thing, I’m a little lost. Are we going to do the mimic thing where we move in sync? Cause that’s usually entertaining.” I posed my arms and took a few steps back and forth to demonstrate.

Mirror’s grin widened, beyond what is typically possible of the mouth. It looked really freaking creepy, and I find few things disturbing. “I’m going to break you by talking. Then, I’m going to fight you to the death.”

I tilted my head quizzically. “Break me by talking? However do you plan to do that?”

Mirror strolled forward with languid grace, showing off her (technically my) body. She said, “Oh, I suppose it will be difficult, after all, a villain like yourself probably doesn’t even care about their faults.”

“Antihero, not villain. Antiheroes have personality stuff and caring and faults, they’re just badass enough to make up for it. I’m going to save Nyx, and catapult it into a glorious new era.”

She laughed richly. “Oh my dear, a sociopath like yourself is far from an antihero, and rarely do they have emotional weak points. That’s why I despair of this speech, really. You wouldn’t care if I killed your only two friends in the world, not really. Oh sure you might put up a fuss, be upset at the loss of minions, but you don’t care about them as people, as friends. At the end of the day, you only keep them around because they serve a purpose. Without that purpose, they are nothing to you. They are worthless.”

Mirror brushed past Clary, and her hand came to rest on Clary’s shoulder. “Would you disagree?”

“Obviously.” I sneered at her. “Your words are foolish. I like my friends, they’re fun. And I can do anything on my own, so your ‘serving a purpose’ argument is flawed too.”

“Oh, you are well aware of their use, their purpose, and your lack of emotional connection makes it easy to manipulate them like you do. You play up their poorly hidden desires, you lead them on and encourage them, all in a bid to make them more obedient, more willing to do what you say, to stay close to you and ignore the abuse you give them. It’s amazing what a few soft words and a flirty smile can get you, isn’t it?”

I fidgeted uncomfortably at her clarity, and said, “You overestimate me here. You claim I both abuse them and seduce them, when neither is true.”

Mirror smirked, and playfully traced her finger along Clary’s shoulder, up her neck, and then grasped her chin. She brought her face close to Mirror’s, and Clary blushed slightly, though she made a small movement to get away. “Look at that, there’s hardly any resistance. Oh, that’s more than psychological manipulation of the mundane kind. I bet you’ve dug around in their heads and changed things, drugged them, implanted thoughts and suggestions… there’s just so many ways to make someone go from a person to a slave. You probably tested your little mind trick on them, the one you used on the werewolf and the knight. Or perhaps you first developed that power much, much earlier. Devious girl, wicked girl, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “Let’s hurry this along, I have things to do and artifacts of power to steal. It doesn’t matter what you say, all the senseless accusations you hurl, my friends are loyal to me and it isn’t because I did something to their heads, it is because they know that I am powerful, and because they enjoy my company and my protection.”

She laughed and came to stand before me. “Such arrogance… and really, arrogance is your defining trait. Normal people, they look at a city and see a place of refuge, a place to live, a place to work, or a place to marvel and admire. You see a place to put statues, a place to glorify and celebrate you, a place to house your subjects. It’s how you think about everything and everyone. Property. Subjects, servants, and slaves. You want to be a goddess, to be worshipped by all. Do you think even that will be enough? Do you think your arrogance, your pride and ambition, do you genuinely, honestly think it will be satisfied by simple deification? By mere godhood? Will your greed rest when you have all the wealth in the world? Will your lust be sated when anyone alive will be your eager toy? Do you think your need for more power, more glory, will ever be sated? Can it? Or will you eternally want more, never happy and never sated, always wracked by your vicious desires and your ravenous ambition, controlled by your darker nature?” The way she said it, it was less a question and more an accusation.

For a brief moment hatred and rage warred within me. How dare she insult me like this! How dare she call me arrogant! She should be punished for defying me! But a part of me was aware enough to realize that such a reaction would merely confirm her statements. I steadied myself, and with an air of nonchalance I shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’ll tell you when I find out, after I’ve conquered the elements.”

Mirror smiled, walking leisurely over to where Malk, Clary, and Wabbit still were. “Ah, that carefree shrug, that laid-back attitude to life. Don’t you ever worry that you just don’t care at all? When you break half the bones in your body, when you slam into a tree, when you take a sword wound to the stomach, does it never worry you that your reaction is not the natural one of fear, or anger, or even basic concern, but rather laughter? When you slaughter a forest of creatures and eat meat raw from their still-warm corpses, when you are covered in the blood of beings you have slain, when you stand over the body of a living, thinking, feeling being that you have just killed, do you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, joy and laughter aren’t the correct responses? Are you simply incapable of taking things seriously? Or perhaps it is some inkling of an inherently sadomasochistic and brutal nature, where pain is seen as pleasure.”

“What can I say, I just like hurting things. It helps me relax after annoying people like you talk my head off with their stupid theories. In fact, I feel like hurting something right now.”

“Yes, you love the thrill of combat, of the feeling that you might die at any second while plowing through hundreds of enemies, taking personal pleasure in each bone you break, each pint of blood you spill, each bit of fire and water and earth that falls from the elementals you wound. You love hurting creatures, and more than that you love hurting people. You love fear in their eyes, the begging, the pleading, and then the crying, and the screaming as you tear them apart. You love hurting things that can feel, that can communicate to you how afraid of you they are, of how much they’re hurting. You love taking a life, even more than you love life itself.”

“Fear tastes sweet indeed.”

“Ah yes, fear. I wonder, just what are you afraid of? You laugh off pain and death, and you respond to failure and refusal by getting mad and killing things. Really, what scares you? What deep, dark fears infest your mind? Are you afraid of losing, or making a mistake that could cost you everything, or perhaps of yourself and what you truly are? In all your mind… you have no fears. You are not afraid of anything, because you are incapable of feeling fear. When you are close to death, all you can feel is worry and idle concern. When you learn that your quest might bring about the apocalypse, the cessation of all life, when you learn that your actions might in fact have consequences, you laugh it off like it’s nothing. You can’t feel fear.”

At this I laughed, for a moment my anger and awkward mood abated. “You say that like it’s a bad thing? So what, maybe I’m just really brave.”

“The lack of fear is not bravery, it is the height of stupidity. Bravery is being able to act in the face of fear, it is not being incapable of knowing when to be afraid. A lack of fear is a lack of self-preservation instincts. You will never be brave until you have felt fear. And you need fear to know when to run. But you can’t feel fear. You’ll never run. And what if one day, you should? What if you find something you can’t beat and you don’t run. Then you’ll die, and you will never achieve your impossible ambitions.”

“Nothing can stop me from achieving my goals. Nothing.”

Mirror walked back to me, and began circling me, her body occasionally brushing mine. She whispered in my ear, “Yes, nothing will ever stop you. It doesn’t matter what stands it your way, be it monsters, laws, people, or basic morals. You’ll take what you want, you’ll take who you want, and you’ll do whatever you please, because in your world nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than your own cruel desires. You’ve stolen. You’ve killed. You’ve raped.”

Instinctually, flaring with anger and hatred, I yelled, “And I had a right to do so! I was strong and they were weak, so I had a right to take of them what I desired, be it their flesh or their life! I had a right, I had a right! They should have been grateful that I showed them even that much attention!” My defenses were fracturing, rapidly.

“You’re what society calls a monster, a criminal, a thief, a murderer, a rapist, a dictator, a conqueror, a tyrant. You are everything, every foul, vile thing that only appears in storybooks because no sane being would ever commit murder against someone of the same element, or rape another elemental regardless of their element! You are a monster, and you revel in being a monster.”

That cut deep. Struggling to maintain my composure, I snarked at her. “You know, I’m not an expert on these things, but isn’t the pretentious speech addressing all the character’s flaws supposed to come near the end of the hero’s journey?”

“You call yourself a hero? What a jest!”

“Yeah, I call myself the hero because that is what I am! I’m doing this for the good of all Darkness! I’m trying to save Nyx from its enemies! I’m trying to uplift all the poor, the starving, those who are denied resources because we are all too weak from just barely surviving the assaults of our enemies, especially those of Light! I may have my flaws, but I am the girl who will save this world!”

Mirror stopped in front of me, and her expression darkened. “Let me make this very clear for you. Every noble act, every good thing that will result from your rise, is just a side effect you use as an excuse to try and placate the people who actually care about morality. You aren’t the hero. You don’t have a journey ahead of you. You have a single room, three artifacts, and a string of atrocities. You are the villain. The antagonist. The Endbringer. The enslaver, the conqueror, the vile woman who will bring suffering and destruction wherever she goes. All free peoples will band together against you, because they will see you as the most powerful, most evil threat they have ever faced before this point in all of their known history. And they will be right.”

There was silence for a long moment.

It stretched on, as I shook in place, my fists clenched.

I could feel the fury inside me demanding to be released. All the rage, all the doubt, all the hatred.

And then I sighed, and went calm.

I looked up at Mirror, looked her right in her empty eye sockets, and with bitterness I said, “Okay. Fine. I’ll admit it, and I’ll accept it. I’m a monster and I know it. I know I’m a villain. I know that I am a psychologically disturbed individual who manipulates people around her and is virtually incapable of forming emotional connections to other people, and can only empathize with an animal that has been molded in her own image, her own personality. I know I have dark desires that seem to only ever want more. I know I control and dominate those around me. I know that I take joy in pain, both giving it and taking it. I know I would murder and steal and do whatever I wanted if I so desired. But here’s the thing. It works. And accepting this, acknowledging this, I’m still going after my goals. None of that was enough to ‘break’ me. So what was the point to it all? And why are you still talking? WHY!?”

She smiled. “I wanted to make sure you knew what you were. You are the most unique elemental ever formed. The most powerful, and the ambitious. The most dangerous, and the most monstrous. You will rise higher than anyone ever has before you, and ever will after you. But you are also flawed, and base, and incapable of seeing beyond your desires, incapable of looking and listening. And so you will fall farther than anyone has ever before you, and ever will after you. And if you accept that, I will let you fight me, and kill me, and take your artifacts, and begin your conquest.”

Scornfully, I replied, “I accept eagerly. Let’s fight, I’m looking forward to killing you now.”

Mirror laughed, and punched me, sending me across the room and straight into a wall.

“Ow,” I said as I slumped there, trying to recover.

I saw her running towards me, and quickly raised a shield to stop her. She sent three bolts of darkness at the shield, and each one threatened to shatter it. She was like me, but more powerful. Which was basically what she’d said she was, but still, now I had proof. She continued to rain blasts on my shield, and I worked quickly to enact the plan I’d thought up just a second prior. As the shield threatened to crumble, I put a new ward in place on it; the adaptive ward used by Abraham.

The next bolt hit the shield, and dissipated soundly.

Mirror grinned that wicked, creepy grin. “Well, it appears you’ve found a new trick. Stole it from the knight?”

“Yep. Along with the rest of his magic.”

“Really? Like what?”

“This,” I said as I sent a beam of light directly at my doppelganger. It exploded on impact, enveloping her in light and temporarily blinding me. When my vision recovered, I saw her charging at me, darkness wreathed around her fists, but slightly scorched from the blast.

I continued to work on the ward while she charged, hoping I could set it up completely before she reached me. I knew that Mirror possessed the firepower to destroy me if the ward had to take a few hits on every attack before adapting, but I hoped that she operated in a similar way, only using powers she’d seen me use. If that was the case, I could just have the ward scan everything I knew, and she’d be unable to do anything to me.

Her first attack rammed into my shield, fists pummeling the barrier I’d set up. After five hits, the ward adapted, but those five hits only failed to destroy the shield because I was still running on borrowed power. She switched to stone fists, like I’d used earlier, and attacked once more.

Just as the shield was about to break, I updated the ward, and her stone fists became useless against my shield. I held my breath as she switched to lightning, gathering it about her before sending three bolts at the shield.

All three dissipated upon contact.

“YES!” I screamed, filled with exhilaration.

Mirror snarled, and began running through all the powers I’d used, each one proving useless against my awesome mega ultra cool super ward of overpowered epic-osity-ness. I continued laughing and cheering, and jeering at Mirror. “Guess you’re nothing but a half-baked copy after all!”

Then she brought out a power I hadn’t used, and didn’t have. My laughter cut out, and I stared blankly as she conjured a blade of pure darkness, and summoned a ball of Dark fire. She threw the ball, which wreathed the shield in flames, blocking my view, and then I saw the shield shatter as she struck it with her blade.

She stood over me, wreathed in black fire and darkness, and said, “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”

I laughed nervously and said, “Uh, kinda.” I darted to the side, running as quickly as I could, as I tried to figure out my next move. I sent a few attacks back at her as she followed me, blasts of darkness, lightning, fire, beams of light, so on, but though each one seemed to do a little, none did a lot, and she kept coming seemingly unimpeded.

As I reached the other side of the cathedral, I turned to face her, and tried something crazy. I cast four spells at once.

Casting is complicated business, though once you’ve done it enough you can throw spells around with wild abandon like I do. But it’s still difficult to maintain multiple spells at once, such as a shield spell and a beam. Four spells is frankly ridiculous. However, I had a plan. Well, less of a plan and more of a last-ditch effort to delay things. I cast a lightning bolt, a fireball, a beam of light, and a bolt of darkness, timing each so that their impacts would all be at the same time. My hope was that enough trauma all at once would get a reaction out of her, and I could take the opportunity to figure out a real plan. The moment they left me a blinding headache hit. Right, and this is why I don’t cast more than one spell at once. Idiot.

The four spells hit Mirror, and sent her careening off to the side, collapsing on the floor. I saw her moving, so she wasn’t out, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I’d managed to do. In fact, it seemed like it was less the amount of magic, but rather the synthesis of multiple magic types. Wait, that can’t be right… but could it? When elements work in synthesis it exponentially increases their power and effect?

I decided to test my new theory. I summoned the darkness to me, a natural action, and then did something completely unnatural, and obscene.

I summoned light.

While my left hand pulsed with darkness, my right hand began to glow with light, and though it revolted me, it also fascinated me. Watching, I brought my hands together, and the light and dark seemed to meld together. For a second they shimmered with a faint green light, and then they became a mass of black and white, of purple and yellow glowing. It looks almost natural… which means I’ve become more powerful than I’d thought. Or perhaps it’s due to absorbing the power of that knight.

I turned back to Mirror, and waited until she was standing. She looked a bit worse than before, something exacerbated when I unleashed the dark and light in a single beam and it struck her. She screamed in rage and agony, and threw ten bolts of darkness at me at once. I activated my shield just in time, and the ward absorbed the attacks.

My suspicions had been confirmed though, so I enacted the second part of my master plan. I picked up my broken sword, or rather the piece with the hilt and the jagged bit of blade attached. I began to work on it as Mirror approached, pouring magic into it, weaving together dark and light and fire and frost as best as I was capable, ignoring earth and air.

When she arrived, I was ready, and as she struck at my shield with fists wreathed in darkness, I removed my shield and met her fists with my broken blade. Her fists struck the blade and bounded off, burning, freezing, and wreathed in a multi-colored aura that seemed to eat at her very flesh. She stared at me in awe, and said, “You… you are more than they ever imagined.”

I smirked, and said, “You’d better believe it.”

I pointed my sword at her, and sent a multi-colored ray out of it, which tore through her chest and left a gaping hole. As she sank to the ground, she smiled. “And yet all the power in the world cannot save you from yourself.”

When her head hit the floor, I heard stone move, and turned around to find a new door had opened, leading to what I assumed to be the final room. I glanced back at Mirror, but she was already fading, not even leaving bones behind. I looked at my friends, who were still on the other side of the room, having stayed out of the fight for their own safety. I called over to them, “So, ready to get tons of loot? Well, first I want to check something, but after that?”

They walked over, Clary in the lead. When she got near, she looked at her feet, then up at me and asked, “Shadow… those things that Mirror said… that you said… were they true? Are you- are you really such a monster? Do you really not care? Would you really be fine if we just died? I don’t want to believe it, but the things she said… she said you’d tampered with our minds! I don’t know what to believe.” She looked so lost, so pitiful, so weak and alone.

I felt… something. And I knew I had to do something, as well. I gave Clary a hug, and whispered in her ear, “Believe in me. If after what Mirror said, you can’t believe that I am a hero, then don’t. But believe that you and Malk and Wabbit belong to me, and I always take care of my belongings. Believe that even if I am a monster, I will always take care of you.”

It wasn’t the nicest, fluffiest assurance ever made, and it certainly wouldn’t be comforting to someone who didn’t know me. But it was honest, and it was enough to ease Clary’s worries. She smiled up at me, and sighed.

With Clary satisfied and Malk not voicing any objections, I walked over to the wall and pressed the stone I’d seen in Abe’s memories. “Uh, what are you doing now?” asked a puzzled Clary.

The stairs emerged, and I gestured to them. “Investigating.”

They followed me down, and together we entered the catacombs. The walls were lined with skulls, all of them with faint glows that were dying down. I could practically feel all the energy in the place, like a buzzing in the back of my head. “This is glorious… they must have killed hundreds of casters to power this dungeon… I want it all.” I breathed in, and the lights all went out as faint trails of essence, of fire and water and dark and light and earth and air, all flowed into me. Alone, they would be as nothing, but together, they were everything.

Malk spoke up. “So, how are you doing that?”

“I’m taking in their essence. It was half-instinctual at first, copying something I’d seen in the memories of the lead knight, but now I think I get it. The energy that elementals have, it leaves when they die, but if you act quickly enough you can preserve it in some form… or take it for yourself. I took his energy, and now their energy. With the fall of all the traps, this energy was fading, but I was able to salvage some of it, and that’s still a lot of power. The people who built this place, the knights, they… they betrayed tens, maybe hundreds of casters from the other elements, and used them to power the traps and creatures in this dungeon. Quite clever.”

He nodded uneasily, and I took a few more seconds to explore the catacombs before coming to the conclusion that there was nothing else of interest. We returned to the cathedral, and entered the final room.