At his command, the three newcomers abruptly launched themselves, respectively, at the original versions of themselves, wielding the same types of weapons (which had seemingly come from nowhere).
“And as for you…” he growled, looking in my direction.
I didn’t wait for him to finish his statement, threat, comment — whatever he was going to say; I telekinetically grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in (which had tipped over when he’d gone to his feet) and shoved it forcefully into the back of his knees. Arms pinwheeling, he toppled over backward. As he went down, his head hit the floor with a sound like a cinderblock being dropped on concrete. Afterward, he lay there, moaning and dazed.
I took a moment to glance at the three Incarnates, and immediately realized that they were fighting for their lives. Their doubles were not only their equals in terms of appearance, it seemed, but also with respect to martial ability, weapon skills, and power.
I turned back to Static, who was still on the floor. Teleporting next to him, I reached down and tried to take the item he held in his hand — what he’d used to summon the doubles of Rune and the others. From all appearances, it appeared to be a green crystal about eight inches long — presumably some type of relic.
As I reached for it, his free hand suddenly snaked out and grabbed my wrist. Before I could react, he whipped his arm back and forth, slamming me to the floor in side-to-side fashion on either side of him. He then twirled me around once like a sack of leaves before flinging me into a nearby wall. I slammed into it hard enough to see stars and then slid to the floor.
Needless to say, I ached all over and immediately began shutting off the pain. Static might look like a frail bag of bones, but he was apparently as strong as a giant. More concerning than his strength, however, was something I had noticed while he was treating me like a towel that he was trying to swat bugs with: I had attempted to become insubstantial, but it hadn’t worked. He was negating my phasing ability.
While this was going through my brain, I saw Static rise up. However, he didn’t come to his feet like a normal person — that is, getting their legs under them, extending, and so on. Instead, he simply rose up the way vampires occasionally do in movies, with his body straight and rigid like a plank of wood.
Looking in my direction, Static snarled, and I expected him to charge at me. Unfortunately, despite much recent experience, I still had a terrible habit of underestimating Incarnates. Static didn’t charge; he just disappeared and then reappeared right next to me before walloping me with a backhand. I went somersaulting through the air, but managed to halt my momentum after about twenty feet and then just floated.
For a moment, we just stared at each other, and then I flew at him, hard and fast. Watching me approach, I saw Static bracing himself, noting that I was coming at him at about chest height. However, just before I reached him, I turned invisible and went low, targeting his knees.
The impact was like hitting two stone pillars, but achieved the desired effect: his legs went out from under him, causing Static to do a solid faceplant on the floor.
Upon turning invisible, my vision had automatically switched to infrared. I now cycled it through the spectrum to something approaching normal and looked around.
Static lay on the floor, moaning in pain, but I wasn’t going to be caught twice by a dazed-and-confused act. This time, keeping out of arm’s reach, I simply teleported the crystal from his hand to mine. I then glanced at Endow and the others to see how they were faring.
Mariner appeared to be injured, with one arm hanging limp, while Rune took shelter behind a protective sphere as his double fired pulses of white light at him. Endow was retreating before a furious onslaught from her look-alike, who wielded her mace like it was part of her body. Things were not looking good for the home team.
I stared at the crystal, trying to figure out how to turn the thing “off.” Unfortunately, it didn’t come with a switch or a manual, so I found myself at a loss concerning what to do.
As I looked the crystal over, I noted Static rising to his feet again in the same eerie manner as before. This time, however, as I turned my attention to him, I also saw something that I hadn’t previously noticed: Static was wearing a necklace with something like an amulet attached to it.
I hadn’t seen it before, so he presumably had kept it tucked down the front of his tunic. Looking at it now, I realized what must have happened: as Static had been headed face-first to the floor, with his legs up and head down, the amulet had slid out from its usual spot. With him back on his feet, it now rested on the outside of his tunic.
Trying to get my head back in the game, I made the crystal invisible (like the rest of me) and continued inspecting it for a moment before temporarily giving up.
Turning my attention back to Static, I saw him spin around in a circle, obviously looking for the crystal I’d taken. I was mentally congratulating myself on outsmarting him when he suddenly vanished and appeared next to me. Faster than I would have thought possible, he reached out and gripped the wrist of the hand holding the crystal.
“Bad move, boy,” he hissed. “The crystal is infused with my power — I know where it is at all times.”
He snapped his fingers, and something like red dust seemed to pour over me from the ceiling. I knew without even thinking about it that I was now visible — and if I needed proof, I got it when
