Page 46 of Pisces Rising
"There she is," Pisces breathed, a mixture of fear and determination surging through her veins. "We have to stop her."
Sagittarius reacted with celestial reflexes, his powerful arms blurring as he launched a cosmic bolt created from starfire itself. The searing missile streaked through the mirrored expanse only to land in a silent, eye-searing detonation as Dark Gemini's slender form shimmered and twisted out of its path with insulting ease.
A wave of Leo's power reshaped the cosmos into a cascading torrent of cosmic force, the stellar tsunami roaring down on Dark Gemini's petite silhouette. But the dark mistress of illusion merely grinned, splitting her perfected visage as the torrent crashed against some unseen barrier, fracturing into a billion glittering specks.
"You fools," Dark Gemini crooned, seeming to caress Pisces’ very essence with her mocking tones. "Did you truly think you could trespass in my mirror realm so brazenly without consequences?"
On cue, Aquarius’ steadying presence flooded Pisces’ consciousness. "Don't let her illusions rattle you," the celestial seer urged. "This is her domain, but we command forces she can never unravel."
Pisces straightened, allowing Aquarius’ empowering words to shore up her fading resolve. She was the keeper of the Cerulean Tear—even diminished as she was without its power, she was still an embodiment of the cosmic balance Dark Gemini sought to upend.
"You're right, Aquarius," Pisces murmured, steeling herself for the battle to come. "I won't let her break me. I can't."
The dark goddess seemed to sense Pisces’ rising determination...and her impish features twisted into a cruel smirk. "Very well, little fish," she purred, her translucent form shimmering. "Let's see if you can dance on the mirror's edge without shattering..."
With a blindingly swift gesture, Dark Gemini shifted—her lithe silhouette blurring and reforming into a mirror-image replication of Leo himself. Pisces’ breath caught in her throat as the twisted mockery flexed its massive, sinewy limbs...and slammed its celestial fists to the invisible, rippling path beneath their feet.
The resulting cosmic shockwave blasted outwards, distorting and shattering the tenuous reality around them in a single cataclysmic eruption. Pisces felt herself fall from the invisible path, tumbling in a dizzying freefall amidst a hailstorm of cosmological debris.
"Aries!" she screamed, reaching out desperately for him as the world fractured around her. "Where are you?"
In the distance, Aries' desperate voice reverberated, calling her name.
As the warped planes flickered and collapsed around her, she could only pray the others could withstand Dark Gemini's attack.
For if not...the mirror realm may well become their cosmic grave.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Pisces tumbled through the fractured cosmos, stellar winds lashing at her essence as she hurtled into the endless void. Reality shattered and reformed around her in a maelstrom of flashing light—the mirror realm unleashing its full, maddening force.
In the distance, Aries’ solar flares intensified, blazing like a supernova gone haywire as the ram warrior fought to regain his bearings and retrieve her. Panic and desperation fueled his unleashed fury, scorching the mirrored planes with searing tendrils of celestial flame.
A massive shadow descended from the starry commotion above. Pisces gasped, eyes widening in terror as an immense, glittering form took shape amid the chaos—a celestial scorpion of staggering proportions. Its pincers were as long as galaxies, wicked claws that could shear through the fabric of existence itself. But it was the creature's tail, arcing overhead with a stinger larger than some planets, that stole Pisces’ breath.
The scorpion's claws caught her with shocking delicacy, drawing her securely into its armored embrace. Pisces trembled, awestruck and petrified, as the creature carried her back toward the shifting terrain of their battleground.
“Thank you, Scorpio,” Pisces managed breathlessly. As the scorpion deposited her gently upon the rippling, invisible path, a blazing lash of solar fire whipped down from the starfields above, coiling protectively around her waist. Pisces caught her breath, the thread of cosmic flames anchoring her—Aries’ way of reassuring her, of steadying her amid the madness.
Dark Gemini watched all this unfold, and then her shrill laughter split the chaos, high and keening, as the twisted goddess's silhouette shimmered and fractured into a billion blazing pieces. The supernova exploded with searing intensity, momentarily blinding Pisces and disrupting her senses entirely.
When the glare faded, Pisces’ surroundings had shifted yet again—the hard-won path they had forged all but erased. Panic gripped her as she realized Sagittarius' guiding star trail, the thread to lead them back to safety, had been obliterated in Dark Gemini's devastating explosion.
Pisces feared they were lost, stranded in this fractured hellscape with no apparent way home. The mirror realm shuddered and cracked around them, the weight of Dark Gemini's malevolent power pressing down like a suffocating shroud. Time was running out.
"Pisces!" Cancer's urgent cry cut through the chaos. "You must attune to the Tear's resonance! It's our only hope!"
Gritting her teeth, Pisces closed her eyes and reached deep within herself—past the fear, past the doubt, to the core of her celestial essence. And there, pulsing like a beacon in the darkness, she felt it: the faintest flicker of familiarity, a crystalline chime that echoed through her very being—her soul's missing shard, the Cerulean Tear.
"I feel it," she gasped, eyes flying open as determination surged through her. "Follow me!"
She plunged deeper into the fray, following the Tear's insistent resonance. It pierced the mirror realm's tangled web of deceit in the endless night.
Cancer's warm shimmer enveloped her, the maternal spirit's presence a protective cocoon shielding her from the skirmish. It bolstered Pisces’ resolve as she turned toward the Cerulean Tear's siren song.
All around her, the chaos raged on. The Zodiacs struggled to force order from the fractured reality and reestablish a path back to the portal. Sagittarius's searing arrows sliced through the madness, carving vaporous breaches that flickered and collapsed. Libra's hypnotic pulses rippled outward, briefly unraveling Dark Gemini's tangled visions, only for the twisted goddess to re-weave them into even more disorienting patterns. Aquarius broadcast a clarion call to maintain focus, push through, and find their way back.