The clock's ticking.
Elisabeth figured she had no more than five minutes to reach her family's safe house in Camelot, which had been carefully arranged to be equidistant from all major points of interest without making its location too obvious for those talented in pattern recognition. The problem was not the location: she knew the route by heart. The problem lay in the fact that the safe house was about seven minutes away on average, and while Elisabeth was doing her best to hurry, her injury, blood loss, and constant spellcasting prevented her from being maximally efficient.
I can make it.
It'll be close, but I can make it.
She ducked into another alleyway, but she could feel the Union special forces inching closer to her.
I'm lucky that guy wanted to test something—he probably wanted to make sure that those bullets would kill me.
But I'm alive because he did that.
Those were a new kind of ammunition…
I had my shield up the entire time, but it didn't matter at all.
Those bullets were designed for someone else, someone unkillable by regular means.
Are you really that strong, Jessamine? Or are you just a good actress?
Another hairpin turn along the path to the safe house; another step towards safety.
The Moriarty family held significant economic sway in the New Roman Union thanks to the cartels and mafiosos they created, and they also had their own agents within the nation—they had agents in nearly every nation, after all—so Elisabeth had first heard the rumblings of anti-Moriarty activity a couple days prior. The Domino Witch had done something to trigger Rome's nullification zone but was able to redirect the feedback towards Elisabeth.
She was preparing for yesterday's assault.
After the bloodbath in St. Peter's Square, an event which would come to be known as 'Bloody Sunday,' the chatter amongst Union special forces increased dramatically. That had been less than twenty-four hours prior to Elisabeth's dorm room confrontation, which was an impressive turnaround time even for an advanced spec-ops unit.
They must've gotten help from somewhere.
But who?
Nah, who am I kidding. There're many factions out there which would jump at the chance to take our family down… too many to count, really.
Maybe that's why people ally with each other.
Do they eliminate an enemy by choosing to trust them?
She was almost there.
She didn't bother checking the windows of the houses and shops she passed—it was the dead of night, and only the dead still walked. There would be no witnesses, but neither would there be any hope of assistance. This was just the life of a Moriarty, and Elisabeth had lived in that solitary existence for so long that it no longer bothered her.
No, this is the way the world works.
There is no real trust, there is no real friendship… just a lot of people pretending that these things exist because the alternative terrifies them.
Trust is a thing that people use to manipulate. In the end, it always bites back.
Trust no one, and you'll never be disappointed…
Lightheadedness was now the largest threat Elisabeth faced as she stumbled towards her safe house. She could see the unassuming door only a hundred meters away, illuminated by the light of the moon, a beacon of hope in the dead of night. A quick glance behind showed no trace—yet—of the Union troops, though it did reveal something far more ominous: her own shadow.
Since her invisibility worked by creating a space which nearly everything would flow through, aside from whatever physical substances her mind believed to be "solid," Elisabeth should not have been able to see her own shadow. There was only one possibility, and it wasn't simply a possibility.
It was a fact.
Her lightheadedness was but a symptom—her brain was beginning to malfunction due to a lack of proper blood flow. And a malfunctioning brain can't maintain a constant invisibility spell, no matter how instinctive the magic may be.
I'm so close!
I can't fail in the last lap!
Through sheer force of will alone, Elisabeth was able to crawl to the door and enter her passcode, but that was the last thing she managed to do before falling unconscious. The door slid open, allowing her defenseless body to slump to the ground only halfway within her safe haven.
Beta team found her first. Their point man fired off a few rounds, one striking Elisabeth's thigh, mangling the helpless woman's leg. The other rounds had vanished into the safe room, but as he prepared to fire again, the solider saw his prey being dragged inside by an unknown figure; the door slammed shut behind them. He continued with his attack, squeezing off another burst of penetrator rounds which no longer lived up to their name.
"Target has retreated to a safe room. She's not alone," he reported. "Safe room appears impenetrable to small arms fire."
"Understood," replied mission command. "Hold position, Beta one. Alpha, Gamma—form up on Beta and prepare to breach. Delta, form a perimeter around the target."
"Alpha, confirm."
"Gamma, confirm."
"Delta, confirm."
As the teams regrouped, a technical officer moved towards the door and began his assessment: "Activating x-vis… interesting. Target location is blocking the spell. Wall depth is unknown. Testing bunker buster with probe rounds—"
He readied the runic device, a context-dependent yet highly-regarded achievement of military magic. They had used it to clear a guard post during one of the early phases of this operation, but they had done so to preserve the element of surprise; its true purpose was realized in situations like this, which was why it had been included in their equipment roster. The technical officer advanced to the building and placed the "bunker buster," as it was known, along the door.
He set the distance to 0.1 meters—ten centimeters—and fired. He brought up a wrist-mounted datapad and read the result: No open space. The probe was within the outer wall of the safe room. He hadn't expected it to succeed, but there was a protocol for these things that he must follow.
He tried again with 0.5 meters; same result.
However, when he tried with a distance of one meter, the probe returned a different result: Open space nearby.
He loaded a specialized explosive into the bunker buster.
"Ready to breach."
Alpha leader relayed the status update to mission command, and the reply was immediate.
"Breach authorized."
"Alpha team, point position. Beta—get the door. Gamma, provide ranged cover to ensure she doesn't escape. We go in on three…"
"One—"
"Two—"
"Three!"
The technical officer fired and swiftly stepped back from the door, discarding the bunker buster and drawing his M4-MA. After a moment, a series of muffled explosions were heard from inside the safe house as the main explosive as well as each probe detonated in sync with each other, and Beta team opened fire. Where once the impact had only generated a dull thud, each round now generated the hollow ping! of puncturing a thin layer of steel.
The door soon fell off its hinges and Alpha team stormed the compound.
It was not a large area: it was a converted townhouse, reinforced with meter-thick steel walls and built-in shield magic, with only two floors and nowhere to hide on either. After all—the entire safe house was already a hiding place, so if it didn't work, what other options could there possibly be?
On the second floor, Alpha team found a man and woman cowering in front of a strange-looking device: the couple were probably the owners of the townhouse—Moriarty agents in deep cover—but the device was unknown to them. It occupied the entire back wall, and consisted of a single raised platform surrounded by many pieces of strange, threatening machinery.
"You there," said Alpha leader, using his rifle to point at the agents. "Are you going to tell us what this is?"
The man shook his head, and his wife's fearful eyes suddenly transformed and became full of conviction, strength, and unbridled malice.
"Never," she said, spitting in Alpha team's direction.
"So be it," replied Alpha leader, shooting both in the head. They wouldn't have given any information, anyway: every Moriarty agent the Union had captured committed suicide before they could be interrogated.
At least he now had the satisfaction of having killed them himself.
"Captain, we've completed our search," reported one of his men. "She isn't here."
Alpha leader lowered his rifle and took a closer look at the device before him.
Somehow, he thought, she used this to escape.
Or did it help her to recover?
If he discarded any preconceived notion of what normal, helpful technology looked like, this mystery device could vaguely be described as medical in nature. They couldn't rule out the possibility that Elisabeth Moriarty had somehow reattached her arm and leg, even though her arm was still in her dorm room.
No one knew the true extent of the Moriarty family's technology, so they had to be prepared for anything.
"Alpha, Beta, withdraw and fan out. Target has escaped. We need to find her before she can get too far."
"Confirm," replied Beta leader.
"Gamma? Any sign?"
"Negative. No movement, no signs of life whatsoever."
"Delta?"
Alpha team was now exiting the safe house, and their leader was feeling the early stages of the primal, existential fear that comes from confronting death itself.
"Repeat—Delta team, report."
Suddenly, a bunch of irregularly-shaped objects dropped out of the sky right in front of them. He didn't need to examine them to know that they were the heads of Delta team, nor did he have any question as to who was responsible.
Alpha leader looked to the sky: there, in all of her inhuman glory, was the Domino Witch. Her hair floated behind her in a halo of magical power, crackling with golden lightning which travelled up and down the length of her body. Her entire form glistened with raw energy, and he got the impression that her skin was etched inside and out with powerful runes.
"Target has shown her true self," he broadcasted, and everyone listening understood his unspoken message.
Very few of the soldiers would make it out alive, if any.
But to their credit, they showed neither cowardice nor hesitation and opened fire on the Witch immediately. This was no longer the mortal shell of Elisabeth Moriarty, however: this was the Domino Witch, and they watched in horror as the penetrator rounds ricocheted off her body in showers of sparks.
After expending three whole magazines in such manner, Alpha leader gave the order to disengage.
"Did you honestly think I would let those hit me again?" she said when the smoke had cleared. "But I guess it was worth a shot. If I had the chance to take me out, I'd try anything if it had worked once."
She smiled.
"So, in recognition of your hard work, I'll play a game with you. One of these illusions—"
With a wave of her hand, twenty-four duplicates of herself appeared around her, circling like the toys of a circus juggler in the midst of a routine.
"—will be real. It'll be me without any countermeasure to your shield-piercing bullets. If you can identify which one it is, you can kill me. If not, well… this game will be over soon enough, so you won't have to worry about the consequences. Though I think you can take a guess as to what they might be."
The Domino Witch dropped to the ground, and the copies dispersed themselves throughout the immediate vicinity.
"Let the games begin!" she cried.
"Did you catch that, control?" asked Alpha leader.
"Indeed," came the reply. "Play her game. If she's telling the truth, this may be our only opportunity to eliminate her. But be warned—she's not known for her honesty."
"Affirmative," acknowledged Alpha leader. "All teams: engage with extreme prejudice. Do not waste time trying to discern illusions from reality. Check your shots, but shoot each copy with the intent to kill. If you see sparks upon contact, call it in."
"Confirm, Alpha one."
"Confirm."
If the M4-MA produced typical gunshots, the entire neighborhood would have been woken by the gunfire that followed. Thankfully, the entire energy of the combustion reaction was consumed by the bullets' runes, so the only sound they produced was that of the air through which they flew being violently displaced. The impacts, however, would still create quite the commotion. Alpha leader anticipated this, and as the first shots were being fired, he had his technical officer use another runic device to produce a selectively-soundproof barrier around the safe house.
Thus, in silence, the three remaining strike teams hunted ghosts throughout the streets of Camelot. And in silence they fell, one by one, to the vengeful ghost who was hunting them in turn.
Elisabeth had begun with Delta team, whose twelve members were not in sight of each other and were not staying in constant contact—they were focused on their mission, doing their best to make sure that the other teams were not interrupted in their own tasks. But that focus, which had in so many other missions been the key to victory, now became the primary blind spot which Elisabeth had exploited with ease.
She had gained two advantages within the safe house: one, a full restoration of her magical abilities which allowed her to multicast spells freely, and two, a custom-designed runic rapier which dissolved the molecular bonds of anything it touched, which was now the primary instrument of her violent retribution.
Elisabeth had shown restraint against Delta team, but only due to the pressure of time. She had escaped the safe house when the door was breached, and she knew that she only had as many seconds as it took for Alpha team to search the building for her to wipe out as many soldiers as possible. She neither knew nor cared about their team identities; she only knew as much as a simple detection-spell scan from within the safe house had told her, which was that 48 soldiers were converging on her location. Thus, when she had bolted out under the cover of invisibility, she focused purely on efficiency in her first assault.
Each member of Delta team had received a single clean slash through the neck before she moved on to the next; it was only in the moments after she was already gone that the soldiers, when trying to survey their surroundings, suddenly found themselves observing their own bodies from a new perspective.
But then Alpha had emerged, and Elisabeth knew that she wouldn't be able to win unless she provided a distraction. However, she was no longer at a disadvantage, and she knew exactly how to turn the tide in her favor.
Her instinctive magic—second only to Jessamine's, in her mind—easily gathered up the tumbling heads of Delta team and dropped them on Alpha's doorstep, while at the same time she conjured up a projection of the Domino Witch. It wasn't physical, but it needed to appear physical: so when they showered the projection in a hailstorm of penetrator rounds, Elisabeth added sparks and sound effects to her illusion to make the soldiers believe their weapons were no longer effective.
Honestly, she had thought, they might not have worked against Her at all.
Who knows?
I'd like to test it out someday, but I don't need to give her an excuse to kill me.
And when she announced the beginning of her game, her rapier was at the ready.
She descended first upon Gamma team, as they were the furthest away from the other two and were very busy dispatching her illusions of the Domino Witch. It was at this point that she allowed herself to engage in emotional acts of brutality: disemboweling and dismemberment were the not-so-guilty pleasures executed upon her hapless victims, and in one case she was even able to incite friendly fire which claimed the lives of two soldiers.
But no matter what horrors she imagined for her prey, she always began by slicing through their vocal cords. Just as the Union strike teams had silenced all campus security, so too did she seek to preserve the element of surprise in her counterattack.
Gamma team had been obliterated before she could satisfy her longing.
Alpha and Beta teams were tackling the problem before them in unison, and were the real Domino Witch among their opponents, they would've been the first to identify her among the duplicates. They had formed a defensive zone around the safe house and were targeting any of Elisabeth's phantoms they saw, each being dispersed with a penetrator round to the head. They wasted neither time, energy, nor bullets—they were just as efficient as Moriarty agents, perhaps even more so, Elisabeth concluded.
However—knowing your opponent is half the battle.
And they don't know their true opponent.
Elisabeth looked down at her new arm and leg: semi-transparent silicone "flesh" covered a prosthetic of titanium and electricity, and she was disgusted by the inhumanity of it all.
No more bikinis for me.
But what she found most repulsive was the fact that her life had been saved by her brother via the very invention that he had used to curry favor with their family and steal her spotlight. She hated that they adored him, that they were able to overlook his inability to use magic and pitiful, cowardly nature just because of that device.
So what if he built a machine to assess combat wounds in the field and implant prosthetics?
That doesn't make him any more of a Moriarty.
If he's so smart, he should make a device which can give him magic.
She looked away from her silicone skin; she couldn't bear it anymore.
Instead, she chose to vent her anger on the remaining Union soldiers. When the very next projection was shot, she once again used the opportunity to create the illusion that it was physical.
"Found her!" said the soldier—Rookie—who had fired the shot. "She lied, she's still invulnerable."
Elisabeth didn't pay attention to the rest of their short-lived conversation because she had already fulfilled her purpose: the remaining soldiers were all facing one direction, open to an attack from the rear.
Gripping her rapier with anger enough to set the world afire, she set upon the objects of her self-expression.
This blade, at least, is my own.