Broker
Chapter 280

Sonya opened her eyes and took in a deep breath, savoring the scent of grass and fresh air. Wind blew across her face, and she took in her surroundings. Her inner world was as vast and empty as it always was. Clouds rolled through the blue sky over her head. She let out a contented sigh and fell back onto the grass, smiling to herself. Here she could let go of a little frustration from the news about Astaroth. It was out of her immediate control anyway, and she really had no interest in overextending herself like she’d done before.

I’ll destroy him eventually anyway. Let him have his fun.

“Feeling better already?” Ishtar’s voice called out.

Sonya tilted her head up and grinned at the woman standing over her. She snorted. “Psh, I'm still pissed, but I’m not gonna let it ruin my day. Besides, he just made himself an easier target this way. Maybe I’ll get lucky with a bounty?”

“I doubt that,” Ishtar said seriously but managed a smirk anyway. “One thing at a time.”

Sonya kip-upped to her feet and did a few stretches, rolling her shoulders and getting loose as a trio of presences approached from afar. She changed her outfit into something a bit more comfortable as well - a white gi similar to what Chunhua usually wore during her hero work. When the three Great Ones arrived, they were talking merrily, especially Pandora and Loki. Sonya gave the two of them a wry smirk before schooling it away when they turned to look at her.

“Settling in?”

Pandora shrugged. “In as much as one can, being what we are,” she said dismissively. “I am just happy that this place persists when you are not present.”

“Could use a house, or some beds,” Loki said absently.

“Loki!” Pandora chided him.

“What?” he complained and rounded on Sonya. “Tell me, does the phrase ‘pretty but empty’ apply to you?” He raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips. “No? Then decorate!”

Old Man Set stepped past the pair with a laugh and put himself in front of Sonya, taking her outstretched hand with a warm grip. He shook her hand briefly. “Don’t mind them. Loki just doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he has no great mission to complete.”

“Hey! I-”

“I think,” Set cut him off without looking back, “I would like to handle the young miss’ training one-on-one today. Perhaps the two of you could wander on your own for a bit?”

Only a heartbeat passed before Pandora and Loki glanced at one another. They didn’t wait another moment before vanishing in a flash of movement. Sonya gave their retreating forms a deadpan look while Set laughed heartily. “It truly is a curious thing you have created here,” he said. “An amalgam of the trap-world Titania created and your own impressive mental gifts. Though, I do agree with them that you are underutilizing it.”

The space Sonya had created wasn’t truly real, nor was it entirely false either. The place persisted when she wasn’t present, as Pandora said. It obeyed, generally speaking, all the usual laws of physics and possessed oxygen, water, and an atmosphere. Sonya knew intellectually that she was sitting on her bed right now with her eyes closed, but all of her senses told her she was in another place. Being honest with herself, she had to agree with him. The only problem was she had no frame of reference to start using it to her advantage.

“Got any suggestions for me?” she asked him, already knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he chortled.

Knew it. Not the hand-holding type, are you, old man?

He took a few paces back and looked her over. “Your poise is good. You’ve been practicing?”

“As much as I can,” Sonya said.

He nodded and held out a hand; a streak of golden light stretched out from his palm before taking the shape of a solid gold khopesh. He spun the weapon once between his fingers before standing up straight. His old body grew in mass, and old muscles filled out as he seemed to miraculously regain his vigor. Wavy white hair shone with an inner light as his eyes burned like melted metal. He tilted his chin up and looked down at her over his nose. “Show me.”

Sonya didn’t need to look back at Ishtar, who had taken the hint and put some distance between herself and the two of them. She flexed her fingers, and a hard-light khopesh of her own appeared. The luminous material flickered before being coated with an illusion of solidity, making it appear like cold iron. Sonya adjusted her grip on the weapon and took a slow step to the left, watching his posture as tension worked its way up one leg.

Sonya had switched from using combat knives to the longer, curved weapon after her rebirth and recovery. The crucible of Titania’s trap had changed her in more ways than one. It had broken her down and left behind a fertile, ironclad foundation to build back up upon. Accepting that she wasn’t Farsight anymore had come with the freedom to finally change things up about how she approached just about everything. Some things she kept as they were integral to her identity. Others, like using the weapon of a scout, fell away.

Meeting Set had pushed improving her fighting style from a long-term goal to something she could achieve in the short term, as long as she put in the effort. He had recommended switching to the khopesh. More importantly, he had driven home the necessity to stop trying to fight like an ordinary human. She was more than that now. A superhuman should fight like one, after all.

Adomopathy activated, and she moved. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, as she swept across the distance between them in an instant. Where it would be normal to begin the swing once she was within range of her opponent, that wasn’t necessary at this kind of speed. The swing could begin at the very first step, the blow completing the moment she came into contact. Momentum carried her forward, and she brought the weapon up in a low arc aimed for his solar plexus.

Set didn’t take a step. His rigid posture only shifted to bring his arm forward. He twisted his wrist and angled his weapon down to catch the hook of her weapon on his. He pulled upward, and, instead of resisting, she let his strength carry her into the air. She planted a hand on his shoulder and threw her lower body up with the motion, completing the handstand while the unmoving old man adjusted his grip to pull her back down. She released her weapon and created another in the opposite hand.

Her body twisted in midair, and she brought the blade around towards where his head should have been. Her senses were already telling her that he had ducked. She followed through and created another in her empty hand, using the spin to bring her back down to the ground in a horizontal chop. She cut through the air as he shot to his feet, his weapon crashing into hers with the kind of force that would break every bone in an ordinary human’s body.

She met his eyes and grinned.

He smiled back.

Faster.

His hand snapped out for her throat as she used his rigid stance to escape, leveraging her body against her weapon to push herself back up into the air. One khopesh locked with his as she swung with the other. He was dual-wielding before she could even blink; her brain processed the swing as he caught the hook of her weapon with his own. She twisted her wrist and broke the first lock, spinning the weapon into a stabbing grip and bringing it down towards his neck. 

They turned into a blur. Sonya danced around Set like an angry, glittering wind. A series of clangs and clashes sent sparks and flickers of light burning into the air around them. She barely touched the ground, using him, his weapons, and every trick she had to keep herself in the air to vary her areas of attack. She was constantly staying above him, upside down if possible. It wasn’t easy. When it came to pure physicality, he was a league above her. They both had Mythic-tier strength, but somehow, every time they locked, he threatened to pull her back down to the ground.

Finally, she let it happen.

Sonya landed on her feet after a particularly rough pull between their locked weapons and darted back up at him. Something popped. He swung. The blade connected with her throat, and she let it happen. Flesh was gouged as she bit down on the berry between her teeth. His eyes went wide as a wild smile broke across his face. Her grin nearly cracked her cheeks as she used her flight power to alter her trajectory just enough to slip past his follow-up swing. 

That was her mistake.

FWOOM!

His swing came down with so much force that the air pressure shifted her angle even more. Her khopesh slipped just past his face as a fist drove up and into her gut. Her eyes popped as she was hurled up into the air and landed in a heap, panting. It took a few seconds to even process that she had been beaten. Her eyes fluttered, and she fell back onto her back, coughing out a laugh. Did he use the force of his own attack to change my trajectory? Holy shit. What kind of control is that? That is some messed-up precision.

“You took my hit,” he said, not disapproving.

“I have a healing power,” Sonya coughed, grinning up at the blue sky.

“Excellent maneuver.”

She barked out a laugh. “You still got me, though. That was one crazy trick. How did you change the force of a swing already in motion like that?”

“I understand strength better than you do,” he said.

She pursed her lips and whipped up into a sitting position, squinting at him. “You ‘understand’ strength?”

“Yes,” the old man said flatly, dismissing his weapons and sitting down across from her.

She did the same. “What does that even mean? Does this have something to do with being a Claimant? Enlightenment?”

He chortled and, with a gesture, conjured up a small black vase with gold handles. Two cups appeared between the two of them, and he poured some nectar out, taking one of the cups up and drinking. She did the same, savoring the warm, rejuvenating feeling. “I do like it when my pupils are quick on the uptake. Yes, I comprehend strength, among other things. It is part of who I am. I needed to achieve that to reach the next stage after becoming a Claimant.”

She leaned forward and set her cup down. “Ishtar said you were willing to talk about what comes next.”

The old man nodded and didn’t bother with building up for dramatic effect. “The next stage is called ‘Declaration.’”

Sonya squinted at him. “Declaration? Like… I declare something?”

He smiled that old-man smile at her again. “Precisely.”

She gave him a deadpan look. “It cannot be that easy.”

“Oh yes, it can,” he said. “Yet at the same time, of all of the stages that come after crossing the threshold, it is the one that most stop at.”

That… made her head hurt a little. She took a moment to really give the words some thought before coming up with a hypothesis. “Crossing the threshold was common in your time,” she said slowly. “But that’s usually where people stopped?”

He nodded. “Good, you understand. The path beyond Claimancy is straightforward in many ways and an impossible labyrinth in others. It is a contradiction that in many ways defines who we are and why there were so few of us to reach the heights of power in our time.”

She didn’t look up when the crunch of grass announced Ishtar, who sat down next to her to listen as well. She elbowed her sister playfully before giving the old man her full focus. “I have more questions.”

“Ask them. I will give you two more for now, and then you must rest and meditate on your own,” he said, the look in his eyes broaching no argument.

That worked for her. “What stage are you?”

He chuckled. “We call it Greatness. It is the peak that an individual can achieve.”

She narrowed her eyes at his wording, and his smile turned a little impish. Of course the old man was going to tempt her into asking a different question than planned. You worded it that way for a reason. I’ll reflect on it, but I have a more pressing question. She cleared her throat. “Can you give me some insight into Declaration?”

He nodded in approval before getting to his feet. “I will do better than that.”

Eh?

He took a few steps back. “I will demonstrate.”

“Demonstrate?”

Old Man Set took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, his eyes fluttering for a heartbeat before he seemed to relax. Then she felt it. Something building that transcended the abilities she understood. She smelled blood. She heard the clash of weapons, shouts, and screams. She felt a brutality hanging in the air that pushed down so hard she thought the ground beneath her would cave in. The air pushed out of her lungs as the feeling intensified. It felt so pure. 

“I Am Battle.”

The old man changed.

No longer was she looking at the hunched old man or the buff but still aged warrior who she had been training with. No. Before her was a being with jet-black skin that glittered with gold. His head was very familiar, that of a hound monster. A jackal-like muzzle that tapered to a point framed by thick black dreadlocks. A pair of molten-gold eyes looked down at her. When she met them, she felt war. It was like every cell in her body experienced a hundred thousand conflicts in an instant - battles won and lost, rage and triumph, blood and carnage. 

This was the Set that people remembered. That the Egyptians carved murals of. This was the incarnation of violence and bloodshed. 

Next to her, Ishtar was on her feet, and only then did she realize that she was as well. She hadn’t even noticed that she had jumped back nearly a dozen feet to put some distance between herself and the being before her. She forced herself to breathe, wiping a drop of sweat from her brow as the magnificent creature glowed again and reverted back to the form of the old man. He smirked at her and sat down to pick up his cup, took another long sip from it, and looked her dead in the eyes.

“That, young Claimant, is your next hurdle.”