“Ngk-,” Vi’s face was starting to turn purple, and gray, and black, and blue, she couldn’t breathe. Her fingers dug tightly into Binah’s, but Binah’s grip was too tight to pry open. Binah locked her raging, furious, wrinkle-folded face, visor-to-visor, into what she believed would be Vilithe’s dying eyes.
It was all Vilithe could do to puppeteer Binah’s grip from crushing her throat. Binah, like Jhynie, was not as talented at psionics like Keter and Chokmah but could resist them. It’s why the roles Keter assigned them felt like they made sense- Binah could keep her mind clear, while Chokmah could delve into them and seek out minds far and wide.
Finally, Binah’s grip relented and Vilithe took a grateful choking gasp of stale, recycled air. She tried to take more in panicked, shallow gasps, but soon the fingers closed back up, choking off any wind path.
Think! Vilithe! Think!
Think Dragonrider! Think Rogue Princess!
There’s got to be a way out of this! There’s got to be. There must be.
There needs to be.
There must be a piece she hadn’t played yet, hasn’t she? Had- she- killed-
Herself?
Eureka! The cyanide pill!
Awkwardly she tried to roll and shuffle Binah to the pile of stuff – ammo, cartridges, and of course the pill – that had clattered to the ground. Slowly, bit by bit, she did it, and then when Binah noticed the ammo she encouraged and pushed them there until they were all the way. Binah savagely pushed the back of Vilithe’s neck painfully into the sharp casings, all bunched up on the floor, and the hard metal tips bit through her jumpsuit, into her skin and some pricks began to draw blood.
Vilithe grit her teeth and dug in with her grit, her nails now pierced Binah’s skin, drawing back her own little trails of black. She was not going to give up! Not now! When she was this close! Both their hands were shaking with fury and exertion now.
Vi’s eyes darted to the pill.
Binah’s gaze followed but then snapped back to Vi’s face. She was not going to miss Vilithe’s dying facial expression.
This was going to be harder than she thought.
Vi now stared intently at the pill, as if it was her one and only saving grace. Binah now locked her eyes on the pill too, anxious that there might be some play she might be missing.
The Rogue Princess began a very old memory, a suicidal ideation, a memory of herself locked in that hexcomb sleeping tube in the dark without food as punishment by Senjya because Vilithe had dared to try and question Senjya’s first failed attacks against Sidarael with logic. Senjya would later learn to finally take Vilithe’s counsel after many losses. But until then, Vilithe had thought to herself… Why keep going?
Senjya had once redacted it, she didn’t want this nasty memory fraying her chaffeur. That redaction- gone now.
The logical little Miss Callethe couldn’t help but think…
Couldn’t it be that easy?
To just give in?
To just give up?
Better the devil you know, the one you knew before you were even born.
Bash her skull into the roof of her hexcomb sleeping tube until she was dead.
Better death than servitude.
What Senjya didn’t understand was that this memory gave Vilithe strength. Even through the redaction, it reached through.
Because she didn’t do it.
For rotations upon rotations she resolved to herself- death is as absurd as living right now. I can’t know for certain that I’ll be freed, or that I’m going to ever be freed from being a vassal to Clan Amallark. But if I die then it’s certain that I die enslaved. Which is beyond absurd.
It was sisyphean, but she had to remain resolutely happy to be alive.
It was the only way to survive.
And so, she survived that ordeal, and that gave her profound strength, and that was why she could resist Zitra’s migraine without detection. It was why she could block Eidren’s pain without hesitation and with alacritous psionic cooldown. It was why she could understand Eidren’s own suicidal ideation and work him through it and ultimately give him the agency to do it, knowing herself how she was in his same position. It was why she had the ultimate hope that he would go the same way she did.
It was why she could learn how to redirect psionic attacks just by seeing Talisa doing it once. It was why she could bend Malevolent the spy into Volent the staunchest ally. The problem- it was all redacted. It had been. Not anymore.
She had never feared death.
She was a dragonrider. And a daredevil. She loved to dance with death.
But she still loved life.
She loved it more than ever now.
And she was still alive after all.
She will win no matter what.
Nothing will stop her.
Because after fusion dancing with Eidren into Volent and becoming the Archon, she remembered everything in her life now, the redaction cleansed away like swiped cobwebs. And she even knew things she couldn’t know before, like how Eidren took those mind blasts, again, and again, from Juulyn and Jhynie.
Bring it on.
And now that she could remember it, she could use it all. She knew how she knew it.
She had unlocked the First of the Unbroken Circles of Zerthimon, the school and art of internal meta-psionic mastery, though she did not know it was called this. She had done this a long time ago. To master anger and pain. By taking a painful or hateful memory, she could channel that into raw psionic energy to be used at will, like for example, imprinting a very compelling memory without necessarily deleting as much, infusing one’s own psionic energy instead of transmuting the psionic energy of the opponent to create false memories in the other- by deleting one’s own.
A Reign of Anger.
She picked apart a little thread of pain. It shrunk her pain insignificantly so, for it was such great pain. If she kept using this resource, eventually it would be depleted, her pain entirely forgotten in the blissful eternal sunshine of a spotless mind. A blessing yes, but a curse in that she would lose her weapon, her tool, of pain forever. She could renew this resource, but it would mean experiencing more great sorrow, and anger.
Vilithe, within your mind is the strength of many psions.
And you’ve got to call on all that strength, all the power that you possess…
Binah’s nails now dug hard into her neck and Vilithe scrunched up her face to bear the pain. No! She was not going to let go now! Not now! She had to hold on!
She dilated her perception of time, what precious moments may remain, and teased apart the thread of pain, much like Zitra did with her malignant thought of wanting to hurt the poor brood mother, and crafted it into a peculiar thought, a lie, one that even disgusted herself for she knew the truth of the matter, but she had to convince herself otherwise-
This pill is good for me.
She shut her eyes to blink away tears, and it gave her just enough release to take another gasp of breath. Vilithe, you must prove yourself equal to the task, you must be worthy of the psionic strength of the Rogue Princess who will defeat the Betrayer! It was Talisa’s voice now, but Talisa was not there.
…or else you don’t deserve it.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Not much time now, she began to see little, crawling, eight-legged hypoxic spots. She scrunched up her brow. It’s not good enough. She needed to make it more detailed. But never could she let herself be convinced that it was true, lest she foolishly eat it herself! But she had to believe in it herself just enough to make it seem true.
Oh, why was lying with the mind so much harder than lying with the voice? Why did psionics have to be so bin taai [變態]?
Focus, Vi! You can do this!
But the strain was unbearable. The body needs oxygen. Every cell in her body cried out in protest. Every muscle ached. Breath! We need to breathe! Please, let us breathe! Please!
Her head began to spin, everything around her, whirling around, the psionic strain was unbearable.
We can’t go on if we don’t breathe…
No! She dared not give up now!
She can’t give up! She won’t give up. Like Spider-Gwen.
Spider-Gwen would never give up.
She bit her lower lip so hard it split.
This pill is good for me. It’s packed full of nutrition. It’s got cholecalciferol, and Goddess knows that I haven’t seen much sun lately.
She puppet-opened just a crack in Binah’s grip wide enough for another precious gasp.
No! No, that doesn’t make sense, you’re elvan! The spirits already make your cholecalciferol for you! You’re pale as the moon. Think. Think!
She’ll never make it. She couldn't… more dark spots crawled over her vision, as fantastic as it was through the dragonrider lensed psychedelic kaleidoscope of radiations of all spectrums, because even completely spirit based visual receptor cells still needed oxygen to fuel the basic energy of life.
It all takes energy.
Energy that was fading away…
No. Think like…
Think like Miles Morales.
Just keep going.
You’ve got to keep going, Vi.
This pill is a fun narcotic...
Oh, that was the best she could do? Her eyes closed.
Some fun would be nice…
No! No, Vi! You’re going to pop it, and then you’re going to die!
And if she closes her eyes, she’ll go under. She’ll just slip to unconsciousness. Fight it! She had to fight it! Stay awake, clear your head, keep trying!
Her eyes snapped back open with renewed vigor, even though she couldn’t see anything anymore at all, because there just wasn’t enough oxygen.
I’ll do it, Auntie Talisa. I won’t fail you.
No matter what, I won't fail you.
Binah’s face lit up with delight, she could sense she was winning. This so-called Rogue Princess’s face was so purple with congested spirits desperately trying to deliver oxygen to her brain that she no longer looked white to Binah, she looked like a- but no, there were some thought-words that even a disgustingly evil, truly villainous, unredeemable rogue like Binah would not think. So, she used the next best alternative. She looked like an orc. A burzed nakaz orc. Binah couldn’t remember why she knew those words, what they even meant, but she’ll settle on that.
Binah was going to enjoy lynching this one, winching her neck, twisting it ‘til it was dry. Feast on this strange fruit and eat her brains.
Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy. A psion who can calculate them should know that.
It’s when the going’s tough, when there seems to be no chance.
That’s when it counts.
Just keep going.
She puppeteered Binah’s hands loose, just enough to stop her from killing her outright, just enough air for a few more thoughts.
imprint(
target: Binah?,
delete:
update: This pill is good for me. It’s a psionic booster. I’ll be able to overcome her puppeteering and finally strangle this smug goyim to death.
);
Not bad, right? Why would Vilithe, the stronger psion, need a psionic booster?
Binah’s look of delight suddenly switched to one of smugness herself, and removing one hand from strangling Vilithe, she reached over, grabbed the cyanide pill, and popped it into her mouth with a look of glee, as if expecting some sort of massive overpowering advantage, and generally pleasant experience. She smacked her lips and tongue as if that would make it taste better, or the ‘boost’ stronger. Oh, it would be strong, all right. Too strong. Way beyond that even.
More was never enough.
Vilithe took the relief of one of her hands releasing her to take a ragged series of heaping breaths of air.
Binah’s smug glee suddenly changed to one of shock, her eyes popping wide as saucers, her pulled out smile collapsing to a little pursed dot.
She clutched her throat as if she could choke it out of her esophagus, but it was too late, the esophageal muscles had pulsed the pill all the way down to her stomach, where it had dropped into a pit of acid and dissolved away to do its thing.
She abruptly began to experience severe cyanide poisoning.
While still locked on top of Vilithe, her weight pressing down and pinning down the relatively more svelte frame of the dragonrider.
Binah’s head began to spin, her breaths came shallow and fast because her body, just like Vilithe’s was, was desperately trying to retrieve oxygen. But the cyanide wouldn’t let her cells do it. Some poisons were stronger than even the spirit’s power to contain.
She vomited all over Vilithe’s face, and Vilithe grimaced, trying her best not to let any of it get into her eyes, nose, and mouth. She would be fine, but it was nonetheless harrowing.
“HUAHH- HUAH-”, Binah wanted to scream ‘You shmegegge [???????]! What have you done?’ but with the cyanide coursing through her veins, she had not the strength to do much more than involuntarily vomit, her body’s last-ditch attempt at purging the fatal poison. Her heart, it beat faster, and faster, and faster. She went into a seizure, her brain did not have enough oxygen to function, and began foaming black at the mouth, her eyes shuttering and juddering as the neuronal connections quickly blinked out, unable to continue firing.
And then Binah, the last of the Serpent Sisters, died with the memories only of all the short, edited lives of all the other Binahs, from ‘recruitment’ to death, and no more.
Her head flopped to the side, her cheek, still flowing with foamy spit, pressed against Vilithe’s cheek. Vilithe was absolutely doused in her puke, and she was thankful it did not clog her airways so she could take measured breaths. Or, well, as much as she could measure anyway. She dared not look towards Binah, but she could still see Binah’s lolling dead eyes from her peripheral vision, which had fallen by the grasp to tilt towards her, as if Binah was accusing her in death for her horrible imprinting.
But she had to. Binah was strangling her. It was one or the other. Life or death.
Vilithe could not stay innocent forever. She was losing more with each passing of rotation.
Binah’s corpse was still flopping and twitching on top of her.
And now she wailed. In despair, finally, again, after all this time staving it away. Even after meeting the Archon and thinking it cleansed away in that comet blast of hope.
“Aaah-hah-haa–aa-aa-aaAAAHH!” She shrieked. She just. Wanted. To. See. Eidren!
How hard did it have to be?
Was this Zeno’s Atalanta Paradox? Every time she got closer, he just got a little bit further away. She could only get halfway there every time, but never all the way.
What else was the universe going to ask her to do?
Welcome back, scryer.
She’d only been hit once in the face with an elbow.
And more. So much more. In time.
No matter what? Even… death? But maybe even death itself can be overcome.
New level, new devil.
There were eight Unbroken Circles of Zerthimon, but it was commonly understood that there were only seven, because the eighth one had never been unlocked. The Unbroken Circles are some of the most advanced psionic techniques known, and Vilithe had so far inadvertently only learned the first. The lesson? To know yourself, and your true pain and struggle, is how you know your strength. Your enduring resolve. Even if knowing is painful. But knowing pain, like the knowledge of all things, will pass in time- for just as the Reign of Anger meant knowing the self, it also meant unknowing the self. No one is sure who Zerthimon is. Certainly, a psion yes, but perhaps not of this universe.
Cantonese for ‘fucked up, perverted, abnormal’.
It was a wound the spirits could heal easily, she would need her lips very soon after this.
Vitamin D
Her brain was close to beginning the process of slowly dying at this point and had pretty much shut down to its lowest functions.
She had a sacred mission now. To avenge Elvankind.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, Binah was an orcan slaver, harvesting their wombs with abandon for her clan, well before the Exodus. Before the secret was even a secret. Binah was an old elvan. That she survived all this time was a miracle, that she had lost all those memories, a pity. Or perhaps not, for they were truly repulsive memories.
Vilithe did know what goyim meant, but Binah, well, she wasn’t even fucking Jewish.
Well, maybe to puppeteer Binah harder, pry those fingers open a bit more for some breath to save herself? But it was just shy of making sense that it was just enough doubt to hold Vi’s hand, or else Vi may very well have just snatched the pill from Binah first and taken it herself.
Projections like this often occur, psionics or not. Similar moods, thoughts, and feelings bouncing around and infecting everyone. For the Godlikes, this phenomenon was called Brain Wave Synchrony.
It even had a skull imprint embossed on it. If that didn’t make it obvious enough that this was cyanide, then nothing was going to. Probably wouldn’t stop ravers from assuming it just meant this was some good shit, though.
‘I got embarrassed about- ‘cause I promised myself I wouldn’t make a face when I was eating those wings. I guarantee on this show, I won’t make a face. …feeling like Snotty Pippen over here.’
‘Shmeggege’, Yiddish for ‘jerk’.
138 bpm
156 bpm
185 bpm
Binah was once Phedelle Gates-Buffet
What she should ask herself was how hard it was going to be after.