Arc: 1
Chapter: 8
Part: 3

 Chapter 8: In the Thick of it

"You... crossed the border," the enemy says.

"So I did."

"...how did you do that?"

"Isn't it obvious? I used my ability."

Right now, I'm at a big advantage, since he doesn't know how my ability works, but...

Well, I guess I'm still not sure how his ability works.

"Why are you standing against me? You and I... we're the same, after all," the enemy says.

"How so?" I respond.

"How so? It's obvious, just look at the two of us!"

What is this dude talking abou- oh it's a race thing.

I guess I should just try and mentally tune out as I try and figure out how this guy's ability really works.

"I mean, seriously! You gain nothing from attacking us!"

I peek back into the black room that I just came from, since I can clearly see the room using the light from this room. Looks like there's a puppet shaped exactly like the enemy mirroring his position in the black room. Everything in that room, including the puppet looks like it's made out of pitch black glass.

"Do you happen to be one of those sympathizers?"

His words, despite how much I want to ignore them, continue to pierce through my thoughts. So, I look back towards the enemy, and one thing that's completely different about this room is that there's no furniture in it. This guy... he's got some assault rifle on his back as well. Also, he's bleeding a bit from his chest from where I punched him earlier, and his shoes are off to his side, with the top parts of them appearing to have blown off. No doubt about it, all the damage I did to that puppet was mirrored to him.

"I don't understand why you're helping those guys! They're a cheap source of work, just promise them a little food or rest for a night, and they'll do basically anything, those savages!"

I can't ignore him, no matter how hard I try. Just... focus on the fight...

Is this guy really blind? I shift to the left and right a little bit, with little glass shards scraping against the ground beneath my feet. His eyes seem to track me just fine.

"Why would you ever want to stop something like that? It literally benefits none of us to stop it! "

. . .

When I shifted side to side, I saw something else out of the corner of my eye. Not sure how I noticed it since I was so focused on the enemy's eyes, but regardless, as I was shuffling around, little black pulses on the wall to the left of me appeared. Is that some type of simulation of what was supposed to be his sharp hearing? I wonder...

I start to generate a little bit of Simplification Soap, just under my feet. Sure enough, despite the fact that it made no sound, there was still visuals to the right of me. It likely not only reacts to sound, but to Psynesis energy as well. It makes sense that it would show up over there as well, since the glass I'm standing on is what used to be the same wall in the black room.

"Heyyyy... Whatcha scheming over there?"

Everything this guy says...

"Well, I suppose I have to give you credit. You're the first person to break through the black room and make it here, to my room."

Yeah... I think I got the ability down. The rules I thought about previously make sense, because it explains the anomaly that happened with my little plan back in the black room.

Darkroom 4.png
Since the white room will show him anything actively giving off Psynesis energy, he doesn't need to use Mind's Body to see the position of the soap on the ground. Since the enemy can walk through the white room freely, it's likely that the puppet in the black room will likely just phase through any objects inside the black room.
Darkroom 5.png
"Man, your acid ability must have been preeetty strong to break through the wall separating the two rooms."

I start to chuckle to myself, although I try to stop. But now that I know exactly how to beat this guy, I can't stop myself!

"What's so funny?"

The best part is that he just sat there like a fucking idiot just letting me do this!Man, even after all that effort Messa put into to try and make me really get into this whole beating up racists thing, I still felt hesitent about the situation. But now...

"Everything you said to me just pissed me off." Whew. Feels good to get that off my chest. Now I should say something intimidating. "Say, how about you learn about the ability that killed your little friend Lina! "

I immediately shoot out a stream of soap from my right hand directly at the enemy. His first reaction is to try and dodge to the right, after all, he thinks the soap is some type of acid. Of course, that's what I want him to do, that's why I shot at him with my off hand.

Just after I shoot the soap with my off-hand, I use my main hand to shoot out a bit of soap into the black room, with it landing near the center of the room.

I immediately start to rush the guy while shooting out another stream of soap from my main hand, while enhancing my body physically. In response, he whips out his gun and gets a few shots off on me. The adrenaline in my brain is speeding up my reactions by a crazy amount, so I have a moment to myself before the bullets fly into me.

Ah- ow! Ouch ouch ouch-ouch!

It feels like I'm getting attacked by a bunch of hornets! Luckily I'm resilient enough to shrug off the bullets enough so that they don't dig into my skin.

After he fires a few shots, he tries to block the soap I sent at him with his gun. He probably expected the gun to melt upon getting hit by it, so he was definitely confused when it didn't. Regardless, I use the opportunity to simplify the internals of the gun, while throwing a physical punch with my right hand.

The enemy decides to sacrifice the gun by using it to block my attack. As I slam my fist into the side of him, the gun snaps in half, with the two pieces flying across the room. The enemy blocked the attack quite cleanly.

Now, I just need him to walk a little bit backwards and to the left, then his puppet in the other room will step onto my Simplification Soap. I have to make sure all my attacks prevent him from looking down, just like what Aroha did.

I start throwing a variety of attacks to his shoulders and above. I manage to get a few clean hits on his shoulders, and even a satisfying "wham" to his face! But eventually, he starts to get a read on my attacks. Of course he would, since I'm purposefully limiting where my attacks are headed. Eventually what was once a good blockstring turns into an easily blocked string of attacks, which eventually turned into an easily dodged string of attacks! But this is good, since now that he's dodging, I can influence where he's moving!

He swerves right! I throw out a right to force him to dodge left! After that, I keep jabbing! He steps back again, and again, and again, and...

Now! He's just to the right of the black splotches on the floor, so his puppet is just to the right of my soap! I swing my right arm towards his head, and just as planned, he ducks and dodges to the left!

It's over!

In the same motion, I keep twirling counter-clockwise, jump about a foot into the air, and prepare to hit a high power mentally charged spinning kick on him for the crippling blow! Just as I thought, he's going to try and jump to dodge the attack as it comes down!

While I can't use Simplification Soap on someone else's skin to fuse them into the ground, I'm not directly using it on his bare feet, I'm using it on his puppet, which should transfer the effect to the real body! Sure enough, I activate simplification, and a little bit of black glass spawns right under his feet, imitating what the simplification ability did to his puppet, which prevents him from jumping!

He realizes what was going on too late, and my mentally charged leg slams into his leg with tremendous force!

"AAAAGHH!! "

Isaac uses Mind's Body to check the damages, for him to quickly find that all neurons attempting to communicate with his left leg have been completely cut off, thus paralyzing the enemy's leg.

Isaac proceeds to focus his entire being into guessing how the enemy is going to block his flurry of attacks. The next 10 seconds to Isaac would feel like minutes, and to the enemy, it would feel like days. Isaac continuously strikes the enemy, quickly breaking down his enemy's defense with his ridiculous speed, as well as breaking down the enemy's mental state with his bone crushing blows! As the enemy gets struck more and more and more, his limbs slowly go limp, before his body follows suit. The final blow hits him so hard his body recoils backwards so fast that his stuck left leg breaks under the pressure!

His body is slammed into the ground, and with him losing consciousness, both the white and black rooms quickly shatter into tiny glass pieces, showering all over and around Isaac.

It takes him a moment for his mind to calm itself down.

Ah... might have gone a bit overboard. I take a slow, deep breath.

I use Mind's Body to sense if he's still alive. ...yeah, he's still got brain activity, but I don't think he's gonna be walking ever again.

...I wonder how Messa's fight went... Oh, there he is now!