The Power of Ten

I pointed mentally. Legion stepped off into a shadow and vanished.

Azaia turned back to look at me curiously, and knew something was wrong with how calm my stare was.

“Let’s greet your sister,” I merely said, as we came up on the door, a brawny and immaculately groomed urgob bodyguard looming outside it to make sure nobody bothered the person within without permission.

That did not, of course, apply to Morninglight’s little sister. His yellow eyes almost popped to see her, and he bellowed a greeting as she happily called back, “Crepu!” She gave him a warm hug, almost coming up to his shoulder as she was half-buried in furry arms.

He was quick to knock twice and open the door after the call from within. He poked his big fanged and tusked head in, his long ears wriggling. “Mizz Light, your little sister is here!”

“Little Wind is here?!” came the happy exclamation, and the door was pulled back quickly, exposing Sinead Morninglight in most of the glittering gold, crystal, and black attire she would be opening her show with in an hour.

She was a golden-haired, golden-skinned, and golden-eyed halvyri beauty, as so many publicity photos had been very happy to convey to all their readers. She was radiating health, life, positive emotions, and the subtle glamour to enhance that first impression she gave everyone.

She embraced Azaia, and they exchanged cheeks kisses automatically, clearly happy to see one another. Therein followed the blur of words of what was up and why she was here and when she arrived and the like, a rehearsed chorus of etiquette exchanged, before Azaia finally turned and stepped aside. “This is my friend Trav, who also came to see your show. I said that I would introduce you to her.”

Morninglight’s eyes fixed on me, and went very wide... in alarm, which she rapidly tried to cover with delight and recognition.

“We have already met,” I said softly before she could, staring at her. Telekinesis pulled Azaia a step away in surprise as I stared at the woman, possibly the most famous singer in the world. “Is that not so, Madam Touvier? Or rather, the thing masquerading as Madam Touvier? I see now the price of you spending so many years of your life looking after a child with no magic, manipulating her towards such ends. How much more famous and younger you are, now, is that not the TRUTH?”

She screamed, clutching at her face as blood spurted out her nose, and the Force Shapechange at VII drove into her.

Purge Form.

“No!” she screamed, as her face pulsed and began to run away, screaming and writhing and drawing lots of attention, including from her bodyguard Crepu, who was staring at her in horror as the gorgeous starlet he served washed away, faded away, and was replaced by what was really underneath her.

Azaia was frozen in absolute horror as she watched the face of her sister get forcibly removed, banished away, and replaced by the mushroom-grey, wrinkled hairless hide, bulging black orbs, and skinny three-fingered form of a doppelganger, stumbling and spasming with the neural feedback of the stolen life and body that had been purged forever from them.

“Kill it,” I ordered her, as the dop stumbled back in the ruins of Light’s costume against her make-up mirror, scattering the contents.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Azaia screamed, putting up her hands, and magic thrummed and came howling to her call. Multi-colored crescents condensed into a Ray and drove out with coruscating, silvered brilliance, driving into the creature with flesh-shredding force and a hatred and loathing that came from the depths of Azaia’s soul.

The dop blew apart, its entire midsection obliterated, spindly and inhuman limbs scattering across the room with viscous purple-blue blood splattering everywhere.

Azaia was staring wide-eyed, along with everybody else... except for me, as I turned around, and fixed my eyes on the young manager standing there, frozen in shock: a halvyr with dark hair, arresting purple eyes, and good looks enough to charm a woman’s socks off.

His eyes were forcibly jerked over to mine, and he swallowed. He started to back away, then realized his feet weren’t touching the floor, and he was scrabbling at the air as he drifted directly towards me.

“Monsieur Crepu,” I said softly, and the hulking, aghast urgob jerked his head around to look at me... and his slit-irised, yellow eyes nearly popped as he, and just about everyone else around, suddenly recognized me.

“Lady Traveler!” The squeak of recognition from something the size of an ogryn was almost funny.

“If he speaks a word, if he tries any tricks, the only part we need of him to stay intact is his head.”

There was something very ominous about the way Crepu’s head turned on the floating guy flailing in midair, unable to touch anything.

The urgob reached out, and grasped the edge of the door. Claws crunched as they bit into the reinforced wood, and he dragged it shut without looking back. “His head will remain intact, Mademoiselle. I cannot speak for the rest of him.” His voice dropped down into a guttural octave that shook bones. That furry, clawed hand reached out there and ignored the flailing hands entirely, swallowing that halvyr’s entire head and closing tight.

The halvyr screamed and shouted and kicked, grabbing at the thick fingers. He was hauled in a little bit closer, and the other big hand closed in on his shoulder.

There was a distinct crunching of bone. The halvyr convulsed and stopped trying to claw at the hand on his head as he screamed in a still higher pitch.

“The police will be here in moments, and an Inquisitor is two minutes out.” I reached out, grabbed the stunned Azaia, and started pulling her away. “Monsieur Crepu, you look like someone who has seen many bad things. I leave this in your hands for now.”

“Lady Traveler, go get them,” he purred, and that sounds really bad when it is that low in octave. The halvyr fell from his floating state, and almost broke his neck when Crepu’s hand did not move.

I stepped over to a shadow, which Legion flowed out of, startling everyone. “Azaia, please visualize the front gate of the villa in Menton. Morningfire is there now.”

“My...” she trailed off, and looked at the closed door.

No, in all likelihood, not her, our, mother. Not anymore.

She visualized and brought up the images for me to look at, the awareness of distance, the Lived-Lines that wrapped around it, and connected to this place with a long bike ride she’d undertaken back when she was sixteen.

I reached out across the skin of the world, spent two points of ki, and we flowed across those Lived-Lines, staying under the suppression of the Shroud, and time and space shifted around us, resolving in us abruptly being outside the closed gates of the Morningsun villa in Menton.

Azaia had Teleported enough that any disorientation vanished within a breath, and Legion just ignored it all, merely looking around once. Sleipner’s cycle was shrunken and in their Masspack and his Alicorn in their hand, just in case. The unicorn had been looking forward to enjoying the concert, having naturally listened to Morninglight’s music many times on his cycle’s radio.

“How did you know?” Azaia gasped. The mindset from a month of slaughtering Cultivators was helping here, but now the reality of their feed-and-Possess tactic had hit incredibly close to home.

“I was hoping I would be wrong. Three other members of the crew are likely disciples of Shoul, assassins using the crew as cover. All three of the backup singers were Poison Heart Warlocks.” Azaia glanced at Legion in shock, who just nodded. “That manager is a Priest of Shoul, although not very high in the ranks, and Morninglight... that was the doppelganger who raised Elrii. Remember me telling you about things she saw and thought she didn’t? Those were things like arms suddenly longer, shoes forming out of feet, hair styling itself. Things that might be minor magic, but actually weren’t.”

“And you knew her how?” Azaia had to ask.

“Understand the Heart of Darkness, Detect Evil at VII,” I said softly. “It had undergone the Steal the Shadow of the Soul Ritual, wrapping herself in the reality of your sister. Not even True Sight would see what she was, as long as it remained in her form.

“However, it was so confident that it didn’t keep an Astral Ward up, or perhaps it could not.

“At VII, the Aura she had was frozen, unmoving, unchanging in the slightest degree, a picture and illusion thrown up there that would defeat any Divination that merely sensed for a presence. But I was looking at the Aura’s structure, not just its image. She was borrowing Morninglight’s Aura, but that Aura could not change. Fake Auras and stolen Auras do not shift and live properly, at least without much higher investment. Auras are reflections of mindsets and the soul, and change everywhere, all the time.

“For instance, her Aura should have sparked with joy when meeting you; goodwill, happiness, familiarity, eagerness, expectations, all working on the balance of Alignments... and it didn’t shift at all.” I lifted my hand to touch the Ward about the ornate villa in front of me. “Once that had happened, it was merely a Saving Throw at -20 to pierce an effect which had no save, courtesy of my Badge,” and thirty days of Infusing it in down time, “and Moment of Perfect Clarity, and I could see what was beneath.

“Recognizing that Aura was naturally very simple after remembering being in its proximity for sixteen years.”

Azaia lifted her eyes to the gates. There were no guards visible, as who would be foolish enough to casually intrude on a Warded Villa?

“And you think my mother-?”

“I think she was Consumed and replaced by Elrii’s father just after Elrii was born. If you look back, her behavior should have started changing right about that time. Elrii not showing the Dark Moon bloodline probably irritated him to the extreme.”

Azaia sucked in another deep breath in horror. “My mother was replaced by a Warlock that long ago?”

“And has probably been enjoying herself ever since.”

“Why wasn’t I taken?” She watched lights start dancing around my finger in what looked like crystalline motes, only organizing themselves into a silvery snowflake of mind-bending complexity. “I assume they went after Flame...”

“You’ve been studying with the Church of Sylune almost constantly since you started gaining power. I expect you are on the list to be replaced as soon as possible, since you had grown to your Nines, like your sisters and mother, but they’ve not had the opportunity to replace you... and are incapable of improving on their stolen lives, so they can’t do a Helix Reversal themselves. They are forever stuck as the lives they stole, at the moment they took them.”

Azaia shuddered, and I poked the Ward.

It was well-made, and should not have been able to be popped so easily. Alas, it had Force components to it, and I was only getting rid of those and the alarm functions.

With that, the lock in front of me was easy. The magical component yielded to a Knock spell, Pin One, set, Pin Two, set, Pin Three, Empty, Pin Four... the mechanical side clicked open to TK from Einz, and the side door opened before us.

Azaia took a deep breath. “Can we trust any of the help?”

“Have they been with the family less then sixteen years?” I asked fatalistically.

“I... our butler, Crugo...”

“The odds he’s not been replaced or was a Shoul agent all along are-?” I asked as we walked up the short drive, Legion following silently and watching the windows. Azaia fell silent, the horror of growing up in a home where her mother was not her mother, and the family help were only waiting for her to grow up so she could be eaten and Replaced stewing at her.

“We’ve been noticed,” Legion said shortly, able to see past the glare and reflection of the glass with Deva Sight.