I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

She was dreaming... She could see hated when she dreamed, it only brought memories of her life growing up, the memories of her childhood when Mother would be with her, teaching her all about the [Shadow] skills she would get, the magic she would have access in case her mana was more inclined to magic...

 

Memories of how when she [Triggered] at five she had been the happiest moment of her life...Till she saw the face of her mother, followed by weeks of testings to find the [Taint] in her, weeks of frantic search for her to try and channel the [Shadows]... Only for nothing to be found... Later on, her therapist would say that most Mothers felt relieved when their daughters didn't inherit the [Taint], that perhaps her Mother had problems dealing with the fact that she wasn't [Tainted], and wanted the best by sending her away from the hate and danger living with a [Tainted] would have.

 

Somehow she doubted her Mother had those troubles, she didn't even need to be cleansed from the [Taint], and her Mother could keep her mana safe from the virtue of her own monstrous domain over [Shadows], the same way she found to free herself from the [Taint] all those years ago...If what she had been told was true that is. She of course couldn't say that to her therapist, the woman was probably already reporting to her Mother or Brother in a way or form... That was the next thing too, her brother.

 

Max...Maximilian Windsor, the prodigal son.

 

He was born to her mother's first husband, a sad attempt from her to try and spite his first love who didn't reciprocate her feelings, the man was allegedly awfully average and wasn't even a metahuman. Not that he had any regrets about marrying her Mother, even if his life was quite short from the mana poisoning he suffered from such extended contact with Mother's mana flesh, he managed to stay around for Max to grow up at least...

 

Max was...good, he was top of the class and inherited most of her mother's talent for mana manipulation and shadows, so he was everything she would need, not that it made her unrequited love better, then she got pregnant again when the man she loved announced his wife was expecting...And then she was born, one of the subordinates of her mother told her as such when she was eight at least.

 

By that point, she was used to living alone in an apartment in one of the safest parts of a city that held the biggest concentration of [Shadow] users in the world, and to not giving the [Windsor] name when someone asked for her last name, she had gotten used to saying [Ashcroft], she was used to not question who her father was, nor why she couldn't live with her Mother, to not question why her brother came only a couple times a year, nor why he was the one to give her birthday gifts and not her mother. She however, wasn't used to the looks she would get.

 

Everyone at school would ignore her, the boys would pull at her hair because it was [Dirty], the girls would giggle at her and bring her eyes saying that they were hideous, the teachers would try and pacify them of course, they knew who her Mother was, but they would shy away from her nonetheless, they would chastise the kids that bullied her...But that was it. No one would go to her birthday parties besides some of the employees of her Mother that she got to know, and while she liked them and enjoyed playing with them...

 

They weren't around, they couldn't go to her apartment and she needed to go to their part of the city, no one ever bothered there for her hair or eyes in that side of the city, but unlike them...She didn't feel the call to the shadows, and her [Skill] and [Mana] needed to be tightly bound inside of her or they would feel burned from her mere presence, It had been interesting to learn, that her mana was anathema to the [Taint]. She of course tried to help her mother with that, but she was directed to R&D and they only took a sample from her mana, which would eventually lead to a better pod than they had, but by a small margin...And she suspected that it was only an effort by Haephestus to make her feel better.

 

And now? After making her best effort to try and be what her mother wanted her to be?

 

After getting to terms with the fact that she would probably never be what her Mother wanted? After coming to terms with the fact that she would try and be a [Hero] and make the world a better place like her Mother did with the [Tainted]?

 

She found that the form she decided was similar to another girl, Elizabeth Starbright. A girl that represented a shining beacon of everything she had wanted in life, she asked her brother about her, and he told her to not mess with her...That only got her more curious, asking some subordinate of her Mother who liked to gossip got her a file with her life on it, a model student from [Avalon], a mother who worked as a model, and a father that worked in accounting, both without pictures in them, but that was probably the security of [Avalon] protecting their civilians.

 

And when a powered in their class showed in a full armor regalia that was similar to [Shadow Pact] the powered form of her brother...Everyone started to look at her as if she was the second coming of [The Stygian Bane], she ignored it of course, but that only made her self-conscious of the amount of trouble she would get Elizabeth with her powered form as [The Thunder Queen], so she went to her...To apologize.

 

Instead, she found that Elizabeth was that [Powered], and she felt...Relief, Elizabeth was not only a [Tainted] but one that strived to be better, strived to go beyond the binds that [Mana] had tied to her, and she even was happy for her to get work with [The Tribunal]!

 

Someone who didn't seem to shy away from her because of her hair or eyes, someone who didn't ask what part of her skill was [Tainted], just someone that was happy for her, genuinely happy for her. Someone that wouldn't mind being her friend... Someone that she hadn't been able to help when they needed her, someone that was being [Tainted] and her [Skill] hadn't been able to help even though she had fought all her life trying to stop it from affecting [Tainted] without effect...But when she wanted it to work...It wasn't enough.

 

And now here she was, dreaming...Dreaming about a life with her Mother still loving her...Dreaming of a life with her father around, a somewhat lanky black-haired man with blue eyes...

 

The father she never met, the love of a mother she never got... She knew it was a dream, of course, the floating feeling in her body was proof enough, and also because she was seeing the scene from a third person point of view.

 

She saw her former child self playing in a sandbox in a park while her mother and father talked with a blonde woman with green eyes, they seemed to know her, she was carrying her son, a kid almost her age with yellow eyes.

 

After some speaking the woman pushed her son towards the sandbox, "Hello!" Said her child self in the dream, "Want to build a castle?"

 

She sounded so happy...Was it wrong to be jealous of her dream self?

 

"...I'm sorry." Said the kid, then he stared upwards, straight to her floating form. "Truly...Unlike what [■■■■■■■■■] thinks, I don't want to do this..." He continued speaking.

 

She...Didn't understand what he said, and her child form seemed to be oblivious to it since it continued to build a castle, her mother and the blonde woman continued speaking while her Father seemed to walk to the side and go towards a vending machine.

 

"...I see...It seems she wants to bring you in, fine. For what is worth...I do think you would survive, even if you are but an [Echo]." Said the kid while his hair started to shine in yellow light.

 

She recognized the effect, it was the same she experienced when she was funneling her skill at full throttle, she wanted to scream at her child self, to run away, to her mother to do something...

 

But no one moved, her voice wasn't heard...Wasn't that ironic...All her life she could have screamed for help, but never did...And when she wanted to scream for help...No one listened.

 

Bellow her, the blonde kid pointed his hand towards her child self and uttered a word she didn't understand, it sounded garbled. Afterward, a spear of lightning struck her child self, and the world lost color...

---

The first thing she noticed when waking up was that she was inside a pod, she knew of them because her mother had taught her about them, in preparation for her [Trigger] and her future [Shadow] skill, her brother had done the same and he reassured her that the pod was safe...

 

So after waking up in one, she wasn't flustered, not by being in a pod at least...

 

"Oh, hello there." Said a...Voice, that was all she could say about it, she didn't know if it was male or female, young or old, she knew however from where it had come from.

 

In front of her was a figure made of blue and yellow energy with a single black strand of hair in what she supposed was its head, she couldn't make heads or tails about who it was, but the voice sounded....Friendly-ish?

 

In the same friendly way, a monotone and bland voice of an old-gen AI sounded, "Alexanders said you would wake up fine but I wasn't sure how much to trust that brat." The voice said while pointing behind itself.

 

She turned to look in that direction, hoping to find someone else to ask about this, but behind this [Thing]...Was nothing, that creature then turned its head to the other side and nodded along...As if it was listening to someone else.

 

"Oh sorry about that, the girl said you can't see them since you aren't [Me/Us]." That thing said, its monotone voice and what seemed to be an attempt at shruging.

 

A bad attempt at shrugging.

 

"It's okay," Chloe answered. Her mother's subordinates had taught her that when dealing with someone who wasn't quite fine in their head to always play along. "Can you open this pod?"

 

She moved her hands all around searching for the release valve, these should have at least one on the inside for emergency cases, but she couldn't find it.

 

"Let me..." The thing started to say before stopping and looking to her right, then to her left after a minute or so, was she speaking with those imaginary friends again? "It seems we can't, not yet anyway...I need to explain a couple of things first."

 

The thing pointed behind her and a blue screen materialized, it showed a picture of Elizabeth speaking with a blonde kid for a second, and then afterward it turned into a picture of herself and this amorphous blob.

 

She was about to ask about the picture of Elizabeth and the blonde kid, that was the same blonde kid that she had seen in her dream.

 

"Let me start first with an apology." The blob of energy said, "It seems my Mother kidnapped you and sent you down here to save me, so yeah. Sorry about that."

 

What?

 

"Not sure who that said Mother is, but I guess it's normal for a Mother to want and save their [Daughter/Son]?" The thing continued speaking.

 

She was getting a mild headache, it seemed as if the concepts were being twisted when that thing spoke.

 

"Your Mother is the [Thing] that took Elizabeth's body?" She asked while trying to channel her mana in her body. If this thing was an ally of that [Thing] she would go guns blazings if needed, she couldn't understand what kind of space she was in but was pretty sure it was some type of [Jail] subtype skill.

 

"What? Who?" Asked the thing tilting its head to one side, it then turned to look behind it as if listening to someone, "It seems that you are confusing me with someone else."

 

The thing then pointed to the blue screen and changed it back once more to the corrupted Elizabeth and the kid, "This is the one you speak of?" She somehow turned zoomed the image in and focused on the corrupted Elizabeth.

 

She didn't know where that was or when it was, but it seemed the same one, perhaps she had been sleeping longer than she expected.

 

"Yes, that is the [Thing] possessing my friend's body." Chloe answered while glaring at the picture, "Is that your [Mother]?" She asked using the same intonation Nyctophagia used before.

 

"That your sister?" Asked the blob to her imaginary friend to her left, "You sure?" And insisted on that line of questioning.

 

Wait...Was..." Are you speaking to Elizabeth? The original?" Chloe asked in a hurry, perhaps...Perhaps this blob was someone that had helped Elizabeth and her saving them from that [Thing]?

 

"Oh right, I didn't ask your name did I?" The thing said while turning behind, "Uuugh, again with the [E] crap? I can't understand those weird [Elizabeth] censored characters"

 

The thing said as if she hadn't pronounced the name of her friend, "I mean both [Elizabeth] and [Alexander] have the same number of characters, I wouldn't recognize them apart if not for the extra [s] at the end of one!" Continued on ranting the amorphous blob of energy.

 

"Anyway, I'm not that thing and she isn't my Mother, it might be this girl's sister or cousin or something, they look the same except for the eyes and weird corrupt look." And as if nothing the blob of energy changed the picture once more. "As I was saying, we have a problem...Or I have a problem I guess...You are a convenient sacrifice Mother sent this way."

 

The blob of energy said in that monotone tone, "Someone stole my body and this brat." She said pointing to her right, "Somehow managed to cut out my [Soul] from the body to [Save] me...Or so he claims"

 

Wait...if someone stole her body...

 

"Yeah yeah, you aren't getting brownie points no matter how you paint it, that sounds suspicious as hell you know...Also, it does not make it better with the whole [I got caught trying to graft my soul to you.]" The blob seemed to want to glare at said kid, but neither her eyeless face nor monotone tone seemed to help her.

 

"This kid in question is the same in the picture right?" Chloe asked raising her hand.

 

"Yes, how did you know? Do you know him? That would make it so much easier to explain." The blob asked, she could almost imagine the star in her eyes...

 

"No sorry, first time I saw him was today." She answered trying to wonder if she was right. "You are [Elizabeth] right?"

 

"Uuugh...you too? I don't get those weird black characters." The amorphous blob of energy said in what she suspected was her attempt of a defeated and annoyed tone. "I guess so, both of them said that was my name, but whatever...I don't have memories right now, don't know if this is my [Soul] or [Mind] either...Probably the [Soul] since the memories should be in the [Mind] right?"

 

That...Elizabeth was fine.

 

She felt almost all her tension drain from her, that [Thing] hadn't killed her friend, nor had she been in danger...No wait, "Your Mother saved you then?" Chloe asked, who could even compete with that monster?

 

"I guess?" Elizabeth answered, "To be honest I woke up like this, it was this kid's previous forms the one that got me [Aware]...And then [She]" Her friend said while pointing to her right "Was the one that made sure Alexanders didn't got away with his plan of just using you."

 

So Elizabeth's mother probably used some kind of high-tier spell to save her daughter's soul and sent a [Familiar] of some kind to help her?

 

She had heard some high-tier Magical Girls could summon some powerful familiars that were able to invade other people's souls...but that would mean she was stuck inside her friend's [Soul]...

 

Granted that [Thing] had captured her...And if that thing was puppetering Elizabeth's body...It was obvious she would be either near her [Soulscape] or inside her [Soulscape].

 

But..."So where are we? This place doesn't look like a [Skill]..." Chloe said while looking around, they were surrounded by a blank canvas, nothing around, the only thing she could see from her pod was the amorphous blob of energy that was Elizabeth...And her pod.

 

"I have no idea. No memories remember?" Elizabeth said with a smirk, or she liked to think she had said with a smirk... "But again, let me explain."

 

The blob of energy said while pointing to her presentation, in the blue screen was her body and the amorphous blob of energy that was Elizabeth.

 

"Alexander's great plan is...Since I need a body, he wants to shove me inside your body. That's it." And inside the picture turned into the blob of energy entering her body and afterward a representation of her friend appeared. "I...can't really see who that is, you sure this thing is working right?"

 

"Yeah, that is you." Chloe said while looking at the image, "That is indeed your normal body."

 

"If you say so..."The blob of energy muttered while moving on, "This means that you will..."

 

"Let's do it then, we don't have time right?" Chloe quickly asked, "What do you need?"

 

This, however, seemed to stun Elizabeth, who turned backward and moved her arm as if trying to hit something behind her, was that...Where the blonde kid was?

 

"Let me finish," Elizabeth said, moving the presentation to another with a couple of rectangles drawn on it, "This is a [Vessel] it's what holds our [Soul], [Mana], and [Talent] (If you have it)"

 

Elizabeth moved on explaining how different people held [Different] grades of [Vessels] about how the bigger the better and such, she imagined hers must be tiny since she had plateaued in talent...

 

Her brother probably had a big one...And her Mother and the member of the [Twelve] probably held the biggest.

 

"And as such if two [Vessels] of the same size merge then the body might not tolerate the fusion, and if it does they might fight for superiority and only one survives." Elizabeth moved on in her explanation.

 

What was she worried about?

 

She knew her [Talent] the best, while it seemed as if she was among the best...She wasn't.

 

"It's okay, Alexanders scanned your body and he says it can hold both our [Vessels] without bursting apart." Elizabeth seemed to take her silence as if she was scared.

 

She wasn't, she knew her body too, it was...The best, superior reflexes that she never had to train, muscle memory that only needed one try to learn... She was at the peak of what a normal human could achieve...

 

Yes...

 

A normal human, most of her teachers said the same about her, 'If only she held Talent.'

 

"It's okay. I will not fight you while the merging occurs, we can ask your Mother for help to find another body for you...Or me in case it's needed later on." Chloe smiled, she would help Elizabeth.

 

Besides...She had seen the fight she had against Akira, the girl had talent, more talent than her, so her [Vessel] must be stronger too. She doubted she could fight her then even if her [Skill] held an advantage against [Shadow] users.

 

"...That isn't the problem." Elizabeth answered back, "If one [Vessel] is stronger...They might sublimate the weaker [Vessel]."

 

Oh...Yeah, that could scare anyone away.

 

"I don't have any mana right now," Chloe said trying to sound reasurring, "And I have heard from a good source that I don't have [Talent], my body is the one carrying me."

 

Plenty of teachers had said so, and that was probably the reason her Mother had taken her last name away from her, "So there is no risk from me [Sublimating] you. You can go ahead with the fusion."

 

This didn't seem to prompt Elizabeth to move along. Was she doubting her? Probably the normal reaction. Had she been on the other side witouth memories...Would she trust someone like this?

 

"You might not remember it, but you helped me once. It was probably something meaningless for you, but it was important for me" Chloe started recounting, "You see, my Mother stripped me of my last name...And while my brother dotes on me...He isn't around much." And wasn't that the truth...

 

Max liked and pampered her when he could, but even though he wasn't that often around, he feared more Mother than he liked her, an understandable reaction. "I...Don't know who my Father is, so really...The only one that would probably miss me is you... And we weren't really friends...I admired how you spoke with confidence, you stood among peers, among people that divided themselves among those that would be [Heroes] and [Villains] and decided that neither could decide what you would be." She had seen that first day when Elizabeth walked as the [Shadow Empress].

 

How she stood proud in the middle, of course, she didn't know that was Elizabeth, and it annoyed at her how they tried to harass her for it... But when she found that it had been Elizabeth...

 

She felt ashamed, ashamed because she should have done that too...She was the daughter of one of the most infamous [Villains] ever to walk this planet... And there she was, playing [Hero].

 

"So really...You can go with it, if your Mother took you from the grasp of that [Thing] and sent me here, she probably has a way to save us both." She doubted that.

 

Even if Elizabeth's Mother was [The Prophet]...She doubted there was a living magical girl that could fight against that [Thing].

 

"It's okay, I will not hate you if you end up merging and overriding me...If anything that may help me more than you think. It will be a middle finger to everyone who snubbed me to be part of someone as talented as you." She felt something in her cheek going downwards.

 

Everyone in her life had ignored her, no one at school wanted to be friends with the black-haired girl with red eyes, even after [Triggering] a thunder-related skill, everyone assumed she was tainted anyway.

 

Even though her skill was a counter to the [Taint] it didn't matter.

 

Her mother couldn't even tolerate her presence, 'Something is wrong with her' she would say to her confidently from time to time, after she heard it the first time she cried all night.

 

And never once went to her again, she knew something was wrong too, why would her body feel so...[Alien] if something wasn't wrong, as if something was missing.

 

"You sure?" Asked Elizabeth once more placing a hand in the pod, as soon as the hand touched the pod the amorphous blob turned into the hand of the blonde girl.

 

"Yes." She answered back, the pod opening, and the blob that was Elizabeth shone once before revealing the body of the girl she had tried to rescue before.

 

Her eyes were no longer red but shining yellow, neither blue nor red, but a golden yellow, "You look good with Yellow, but I liked the blue eyes more." Chloe said before hugging the girl.

 

"I...Can't see my reflection so I will take your word for it," Elizabeth answered with a smile on her face, looking down at the body of the girl was taking a more solid form.

 

While hers was starting to fade away.

 

"What do you need me to do?" Chloe asked to Elizabeth.

 

"Nothing, the process started when Elizabeth opened the pod and you touched her." Answered a blonde kid, when had he shown up?

 

"Sorry about this," Said another Elizabeth, this one with blue eyes. Two Elizabeths?

 

"They say that..." Started speaking the Elizabeth that she was hugging.

 

"Yeah heard them," Chloe interrupted the yellow-eyed Elizabeth while grabbing into a hug the blue-eyed one. "Let's make sure all your parts come okay?"

 

And hugged both girls at the same time, and then turned to the blonde kid...What was he even doing here?

 

"That a part of you too?" She asked eyeing the kid, why would a part of Elizabeth be a brat?

 

"Not too sure to be honest, he was here so maybe?" Answered the yellow-eyed Elizabeth.

 

"He isn't" Quickly said the blue-eyed one, "He is what we used to be in another life...Not sure what will happen to him now that we are moving to another body though."

 

So Elizabeth used to be a brat? That was...weird.

 

"Yeah about that...Not gonna stay around to find out about it, I will just burn away what remains before staying as deep as possible, not wanna find out what [Ethan] does if he finds me around. If you manage to off him before he [Ascends] I might try to wrestle control of the body tho." The kid said with a shrug.

 

She...Didn't think someone would be able to stop that [Thing].

 

"Come here," Chloe said while extending one of her hands towards him, it was hard to try and grab someone while you were hugging two people already. "If what my teachers used to say is true, my body should have enough [Talent] to house you all."

 

"Not that I want to share headspace with you." Added the yellow-eyed Elizabeth.

 

"But I mean...You already lived with us all our lives...Might as well." Said the blue-eyed one.

 

"...That isn't how this works." The kid said while walking towards them, "That is not how this will go, you all will not remember anything...Neither I, we will not be the same, we will all be blended together and only god knows what will awake."

 

And then he hugged the yellow-eyed Elizabeth, his body started losing shape and merging into that Elizabeth, "See you on the other side." Was the last thing he said before disappearing.

 

"Always a show of", the blue-eyed one said, her body starting to turn into motes of light that flew into the yellow-eyed one.

 

Leaving only her and the yellow-eyed one, she now was more solid and one of her eyes had turned blue, while the other remained yellow. "I will not let you fade away." Said Elizabeth.

 

Her own body was starting to turn into motes of light too, she...Didn't feel too bad about it, "Tell my brother I'm sorry." Was all she could think to say.

 

And before her energy disappeared she kissed Elizabeth.

 

"He is called Maximilian Windsor, ask for him around [Echidna]'s Area. Tell him you have a message from his sister, they will relay it to him." And then, she felt nothing.

 

She could see Elizabeth touch her cheek where she had kissed her, she never had friends, nor a boyfriend, but she liked to think that if she ever got a friend in her next life...She could have spent time with them and maybe said goodbye like that to them.

 

She had always been envious about those who could say goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, at least her brother always used to do that to her when she was feeling down when she was little.

 

Perhaps this would settle some of the fears Elizabeth had about her [Vessel] being sublimated into hers.

 

She didn't hold those fears like the blonde girl, she [Knew] she wouldn't survive...

 

But if Elizabeth had a Mother that loved her enough to fight against that [Thing]...To even dare and stand against him...

 

Surely she would need more the second chance, her own mother had disowned her when she was five... Her brother while he loved her... Wasn't that often around... So she only hoped her [Body] helped Elizabeth achieve whatever dream she had...And that in her next life, she could have a loving family waiting for her.

 

Surely she had earned that...Right?