The Other Me: Chapter Eight

WRITTEN: 20 December 2012
==PART THREE: THE OTHER ME==
==Chapter Eight: The Battle of the Lillian's==
At first there was nothing but silence. Everyone was staring at the other Queen and Prince, while both of them quickly took in the occupants of the room before focusing on Lillian. It was Reaver who broke the silence.
‘I believe Logan and I now have the proof we needed to prove that you are not our Queen, Lillian,’ he informed Lillian.
‘I should have known that you and Logan would be able to tell the difference,’ said Lily, though she never took her eyes off Lillian. ‘This Logan and the Reaver of his universe figured it out for themselves too.’
‘How could we not?’ replied Hero Logan. ‘Now, dare I ask the stupid question and ask if you will come with me quietly, Lillian.’
‘As if, Logan!’ Lillian snapped. ‘That decision will be made by me and the other me.’
‘You have to leave my kingdom,’ Lily informed her coldly. ‘You will be returning to your universe with your Logan where you will be imprisoned for life or until you see the light.’
‘You cannot be serious!’ Lillian exclaimed. ‘You would take Logan’s side instead of your own?’
‘We aren’t the same person,’ Lily told her. ‘We maybe the same person in blood, but we’re not the same person in character. It is our character that makes us two completely different people.’
Silence followed her statement, before Lillian’s eyes hardened dramatically.
‘I shall not give up my throne!’ she declared, summoning her balverine allies.
‘Now there’s something I haven’t missed,’ Hero Logan muttered bitterly, drawing his hammer and bracing himself as three balverines charged at him and sent him flying into a wall.
‘Are you okay?’ Lily yelled as Lillian sent flying, fiery blades at her. She only just managed to dodge them while the people around her screamed. Many began to flee the room.
‘I’m fine. I’m used to it by now,’ Logan grumbled as he defended himself. ‘These balverines are too powerful for me. See if you can take her on.’
‘How am I meant to do that?’ Lillian demanded. ‘I don’t have her power!’
‘Somewhere inside you, you do. Just believe in yourself!’
‘He sounds like Dad and Walter combined,’ Lillian muttered to herself as she nervously went to face Lillian, one on one.
She was the only one who didn’t have faith in her abilities. Everyone else always did. Never once did Jasper, Walter, Logan or Reaver ever lose faith in her, so why did she?
As Lily made her way to Lillian, she was constantly dodging all of her evil self’s Willed and furious attacks. As she dodged she prayed that her people wouldn’t be hurt in the process. She also watched as Reaver got the injured Logan out of harm’s way. Of course, that was after shooting Craig for irritating him. Something’s never changed.
‘Stop before I make you!’ Lily threatened Lillian confidently; at least her voice was confident. The rest of her wasn’t.
‘Empty threat!’ Lillian all but laughed. ‘Don’t think that I haven’t seen those gauntlets you are wearing. If your Will was anything like mine, you wouldn’t need them.’
‘I don’t need Will to fight you! Unlike you, I have enough skills with a blade to defeat you.’
‘As if.’
With a snap of her fingers, Lillian sent an invisible force at the sword in Lily’s hand, sending it flying from her hand.
‘You were saying?’ Lillian questioned tauntingly.
Lily silently cursed. Now she had no choice but to use Will, as she wasn’t very talented with a gun, even if she was better than Logan. And even though she was a talented Will-user, she wasn’t as powerful as Lillian.
Here goes nothing, she thought conjuring a vortex of fire. Vortex and fire were the only abilities she had as she only had those gauntlets.
Lillian screamed as her long hair caught fire. She ran to a cowering servant, grabbed the water jug and put her hair out. By this time, however, she didn’t have much hair left.
Furious, Lillian sent a high voltage of electricity at Lily’s gauntlets. Lily had to rip them off as they began to malfunction.
Great, now what? Lily wondered, looking desperately around. As she did so, she saw Hero Logan now at the mercy of the dead balverines.
In that moment of fear for her brother-in-another-universe’s safety, Lily was able to call upon a power she never knew she had. It was the same power Lillian had.
Without hesitation, Lily managed to defeat the balverines through a mixture of fire and lightning. Lillian let out a scream of outrage as Hero Logan slowly made his way to join Lily.
‘You know what,’ Lillian growled with an insane laugh, ‘you’re right. We are two completely different people.’
Everyone backed away from Lillian. She had a crazy, insane look in her eyes and electricity was buzzing around her as blood red Will lines appeared indicating that her next attack wouldn’t be a petty one. Her next one would kill. However, before she could attack, the sound of a gunshot sounded and Lillian fell to the ground, clutching her right, calf-muscle, crying. Reaver, having noticed his goddaughter’s life was in danger, had shot Lillian in her calf-muscle.
‘How could you?’ Lillian screamed at him.
‘I will not stand idly by as you murder Lily,’ Reaver informed her coldly. ‘She’s like a daughter to me and I will never allow you to take her from me!’
Hurt by his coldness, Lillian finally cracked. She sat there screaming and crying.
Lily looked up at the Hero Logan and saw that it was killing him to see her this way.
‘What will you do now?’ she asked him. ‘Will you sentence her to death like she did to you?’
‘No. I know that she is a danger to everyone and the people will be crying out for her blood, but I do not have the heart to kill her,’ he replied softly, his green eyes focused on Lillian. ‘Despite what she has done, she is my little sister and I do love her, regardless of what she thinks. Besides, Father and Mother pretty much drilled it into me that family is the most important thing in the world.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’ll find her some help.’
‘What about her Will?’
‘I have no idea,’ Hero Logan admitted before jumping as the people who had remained in the throne room screamed. Theresa had just appeared in shimmering blue light.
‘Hi, Theresa,’ the Heroes said in unison, while Reaver groaned.
‘I have a solution to your problem, Logan,’ the blind Seer said in her usual calm voice. She was holding some sort of collar.
‘I’m really tired at the moment, Theresa, so I’m not in the mood for your riddles,’ Hero Logan informed her, staring at the collar. ‘So how is having my sister chained up like an animal going to stop her using her Will?’
‘You must be tired if you don’t recognise it,’ replied Theresa. ‘How many times had Sparrow shown you his destroyed collar from when he was a Spire Guard?’
‘I know that it is a Spire collar, but what’s it meant – oh.’ It finally hit him. He quickly took it off his something-great aunt and put it around his sister’s neck, with great difficulty too. The collar would drain her Will and prevent her from using it.
‘How did you get it?’ asked Lily.
‘There are many instruments of Lucien Fairfax’s still remaining in the Spire,’ Theresa answered. ‘You have now fulfilled your purposes in each other’s universes. It is time for you to return to your universe, Logan.’
‘You are very lucky to have Lily as a sister,’ Hero Logan informed his other self. ‘I am envious of the relationship you two have.’
‘Maybe, in the distant future, you and Lillian will have a relationship like ours too,’ Logan replied as Reaver helped him to his feet.
‘I doubt it.’ Hero Logan turned to Lily. ‘Thank you for everything, Lily.’
Lily never got the chance to reply because Logan and Lillian had disappeared back to their universe.
Lily stared at the spot they had been before smiling as Elliot embraced her from behind.
‘Thank goodness you are alright,’ he muttered.
‘You too,’ she replied. ‘So, dare I ask how much damage Lillian caused in the year I was gone.’
‘You’ve only been gone for a week,’ replied Page. She was frowning.
Lily frowned back before looking at Theresa.
‘Does time run differently between the universes?’ she asked the Seer.
‘Yes. If it didn’t, then you would have gone to the other world after the Crawler’s invasion,’ Theresa replied, before returning to the Spire.
Lily sighed and faced her family and friends.
‘So, how much damage did she do?’ she asked nervously.
No one held back in informing Lily of exactly what Lillian had done. Once they had finished, Lily sighed before going over and embracing Logan tightly. Somewhere along the line, her friends had reminded her of what Lily vowed to do when she saw her brother again.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered into Logan’s chest.
‘For what?’ he asked.
‘For the sacrifice you made to get that gold we needed just before the Crawler’s attack.’
‘Huh?’
‘I know that you slept with Uncle Reaver to get it off him.’
The room fell quiet and looked disbelievingly at the shocked, but horrified Logan.
‘I can assure you that I have never slept with Uncle Reaver,’ he said.
‘He speaks the truth,’ said Reaver. He was shock that his goddaughter thought that they had slept together. ‘I gave him the money free of charge. You should know that I would never sleep with you kids. Scarily enough, I see you two as my own.’
‘But then… why did you always seem embarrassed when I mentioned the gold and Uncle Reaver?’ Lily asked Logan, looking confused.
Logan went red while Reaver chuckled.
‘Let’s just say that I was entertaining a guest when Logan entered my study,’ replied Reaver.
‘Oh.’ Lily felt the heat rising in her cheeks.
-----THE OTHER ME-----
Over the next few weeks, Lily spent all her time and energy fixing the damage Lillian had done. She couldn’t believe that she had caused so much damage in such a short period of time.
On the bright side, she did manage to get Logan to ask Page out on a date, even if it was just to shut his sister up. For weeks she had been nagging him about his true feelings about her, like how he found her attractive and how he liked her personality.
It turned out that the feelings the Logan and Page in Lillian’s universe shared was present in Lily’s universe too. Lily was so excited that she would end up having her best friend as a sister-in-law.
Meanwhile, in the other universe, Logan was having no luck with Lillian and he was eventually forced to give up on her. He ended up sending her to the securest prison for criminals of Albion… Traitor’s Keep.
“I see other worlds than this one” – Theresa, Fable II