2.21 The Not-So-Shocking Reveal

Zoey, Not-Zoey, Rosalie, and Delta walked into the boss room.

A breathtaking chamber spread out before them. Arched pillars with carved marble decorated a circular arena surrounded by columns that reached high into the domed ceiling. At the center was a bed, complete with silk sheets and a thick mattress. A large mirror hung on one wall, reflecting the scene.

"Any guesses what the bed's for?" Delta asked dryly.

At each corner of the walls sat massive statues depicting ... them? The statues were nude women, with her, Delta's, and Rosalie's visages plainly etched into the stone. They stood in various sensual poses. Rosalie's statue cupped her breasts, while Delta's held her hands behind her back, leaned forward with a smirk. Zoey's statue, on the other hand, had her hands on her hips, chest thrust out, and looking almost arrogantly confident.

The stone had an otherworldly luster to it, almost glowing under the lights inside the domed chamber. It made Zoey shiver—the otherworldliness, the elegance, and the fact it was their own faces on the statues.

"Well," Not-Zoey sighed, "I guess it's time for the big reveal."

"You're the boss," Rosalie said. "I'm shocked."

"Absolutely floored," Delta said.

"Huh?" Zoey said. "Wait, what?"

"I guess fooling one of you's not so bad," Not-Zoey said.

"Doesn't count," Delta said. "She's new to this."

"Wait—wait," Zoey said. "No, that can't be right."

"Don't be upset," Not-Zoey said, turning to her, and she seemed genuinely distressed. "Our talk wasn't fake. Everything I said, I meant, and I am you—just ... not entirely."

"Your talk?" Delta asked.

"We did some self-reflecting together," Not-Zoey said. Concerned green eyes flicked to Zoey, and she insisted, "and it was every bit real. I'm glad we could have it."

"You're—you're the boss?" Zoey's head spun. "What are you?"

"A reflection," Not-Zoey said. "For a lack of a better term." She waved a hand in front of her face, and in a chilling display of what she meant, Not-Zoey's face morphed into ... Not-Rosalie. Her body shrunk, appropriating Rosalie's diminutive but powerful frame, Zoey's generous curves melting into Rosalie's smaller, just-as-enticing ones. "I'm hollow. I take in other people. There's really not much of me," she admitted. "Whoever I'm wearing, takes up most of who I am. So I was you. It wasn't a lie." The words came in Rosalie's crisply enunciated voice, now, not Zoey's.

"But ... you knew ..."

"Our circumstances?" Not-Rosalie asked. Her lips quirked. "I did. The memories come with the face." She turned to Rosalie. "Which, let me tell you, is always interesting. Everyone's secrets, poured out for me to see."

Rosalie stiffened at the implication, eyes widening.

Not-Rosalie laughed. "The best part is," she said tauntingly, "I bet you think you're the one with bigger things to hide."

Which was a statement that drew two pairs of eyes—Rosalie's and Delta's—to Zoey.

Zoey didn't have a response. For multiple reasons. The first being the obvious—how to respond to an accusation like that. 'Yeah, I'm from another world, guys.'

The second reason, that she was still reeling from how Not-Zoey (Not-Rosalie?) was the shard's boss monster. Her interactions with Not-Zoey had been so ... genuine. Regardless that both Rosalie and Delta had alluded to not trusting Not-Zoey—and Zoey herself for that matter—immediately upon seeing the two of them. Still. She felt ... betrayed. Silly as she felt to admit it. Of course something weird was going on with Not-Zoey.

Not-Zoey's personality, perhaps expectedly considering who—or what—she was, had shifted as soon as she changed skins. Rosalie's confident demeanor now draped across her shoulders, and she smirked antagonistically at her fox-eared counterpart: Rosalie, in Delta's body.

"Some honesty would go a long way, you know. Why hide? At least Zoey has good reasons for it. Better than yours, at least."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Purple eyes—Delta's, but Rosalie's—flicked between Zoey and Not-Rosalie.

Zoey crossed her arms. "She doesn't have to share anything she doesn't want to."

"And our gallant hero rises up," Not-Rosalie said, rolling her eyes and turning back to Zoey. "You two are lucky I'm keeping your confidence. There's a lot of really interesting conversations I could force out, knowing what I know." She turned to Delta. "I wonder, is it three for three?"

Delta stiffened as Not-Rosalie's features shifted. An orange tail sprouted from her tailbone, and Rosalie's blonde hair shifted to orange, a pair of ears popping out from her head.

Not-Delta's head tilted.

Her nose wrinkled.

"Wow," Not-Delta said. "How boring."

"Yeah, fuck you too," Delta said dryly. "Not all of us can be secret royalty."

Not-Delta laughed. "Fair enough." Dismissively, she turned away, facing Zoey, long orange tail swishing in amusement.

"How's your particular style of 'fighting' going to work?" Zoey asked. She asked as much out of genuine curiosity as to steer them away from the sensitive topics Not-Delta had chosen to play with—Rosalie's and Zoey's secrets.

"Hm," Not-Delta said, tapping her lip as if considering the question. With her adoption of Delta's body, she'd taken a playful, irreverent demeanor. "Let's start with some good old fashioned fun first. It can't all be fucking and frolicking, can it?" Her lips tugged down, her eyes locking with Zoey's. "Though, I'm sorry about this next part—but your team's weak point is pretty obvious."

Ah, Zoey thought. Rosalie had said the bosses would be smarter.

###

The reflection—the body-shifter—fought with all three of their styles, abilities, and tendencies. Her body morphed between Delta's, Rosalie's, and least frequently Zoey's, as appropriate to the situation. She fought with just as much deadliness—and intensity—as any of them.

Rosalie was hard-pressed to keep Zoey protected from her onslaught. Rosalie was, after all, defending Zoey from herself. The reflection's brutal elegance in combat matched perfectly with Rosalie's own, and worse, exceeded it; the reflection-monster was faster, stronger, and just as skilled as whoever's body she inhabited. With her teammate's natural prowess, it was a distinctly more threatening situation than most tier two shards would present. A counter, so to say, specifically to them: whose unusual talents should have meant they were safe in such a low-rank shard.

Only the fact it was a three-on-one meant Zoey stayed protected. And even then, not perfectly. It was the first time Zoey had taken actual hits during either shards; the reflection's dagger—summoned from nowhere, a sliver of plate-glass that morphed with as much fluid ease as the creature did—caught Zoey in several places, her thighs, arm, stomach, scratching red lines that dripped rivulets of blood down her body.

Zoey's heart slammed in her chest as her party squared off against the shard's final encounter, desperately trying to keep her attention and failing, the reflection's attention focused only on Zoey—the 'weak link'. However many times she'd acknowledged that these shards could be dangerous ... the sting of glass opening up her skin had hammered the fact in with fatal clarity no amount of mental acknowledgment could have managed.

If things go wrong ... this could be the end.

But things didn't go wrong. The reflection's assault was vicious and focused, but her teammates—though, admittedly, not Zoey, a quarter as much—rose up to the challenge. Again, these two girls weren't beginners in the slightest; they responded to the threat almost as if they'd been expecting it. Rosalie and Delta moved as a unit, as if they'd prepared specifically for the body-shifter. Even through Zoey's panic, she was impressed; their coordination was seamless, despite having known each other less than a day.

The reflection was driven off by their efforts. Unlike Mel—the first boss—her so-called 'healthiness' was harder to discern, but by her flagging stamina and the injuries accruing across her body, persisting even after body-shifts, Zoey could tell she was being worn down.

"Okay, okay," Not-Rosalie finally laughed, peeling back from the brawl and swaying unsteadily on her feet. "Like I said, some old-fashioned fun to start. But let's not finish too quickly. To the main course."

She swiped her hand to the left, and Zoey was suddenly falling.

###

She landed hard onto the giant, plush bed that sat at the center of the room, bouncing with the impact before steadying herself on her hands and knees.

What? They'd been fighting on the outskirts of the chamber-arena, dancing around the perimeter as they—or more accurately, Rosalie and Delta—fought against the creature. How had Zoey been teleported to the center of the room? And where were her teammates?

"Go ahead," Not-Zoey said, making Zoey jump. "Heal up." She grinned. "Good thing you didn't empty out all the health potions to scoop up dungeon-trap cum."

Zoey stared warily at Not-Zoey, but she didn't seem about to attack. And whatever had happened, it seemed the first—the only?—attack phase of the fight had ended. She checked herself over, running her hands and eyes across her body. The fall hadn't hurt, not seriously, however long-lasting and rapidly accelerating it had felt. The plush bed had cushioned the impact.

And while she was still bleeding from the wounds she'd gathered during the fight—blood dripping down from several glancing blows, the most Rosalie had allowed past her guard—she was, all things considered, not in bad shape. Not pristine ... but not in any dire state, either.

She did as told and downed a health potion, summoned from her inventory, eying Not-Zoey as she did. Though not her first time drinking a potion—she'd relied on the stamina ones heavily during their long travels—it was Zoey's first time drinking a health one. The liquid burned as it went down, but it did its job, healing her minor injuries, the glancing blows inflicted by the reflection's morphing glass weapons. Her insides tingled as the potion worked its magic.

Not-Zoey watched her drink, grinning. "Cool," she said. "Now, there's something we were so rudely interrupted from finishing, isn't there? I just hope you don't mind the spectators."

"Spectators?" Zoey's eyes followed the direction of Not-Zoey's smirk. There, up in the rafters of the enormous boss-room arena, paced her two teammates. Rosalie banged her fist on an invisible barrier. She was a bit too far for Zoey to make out an expression, but her body-language radiated displeasure. "Ah." Then, the first part of what Not-Zoey said sunk in. "Rudely interrupted?"

The smirk grew. Not-Zoey fell back into the bed, then rolled over, showcasing her exposed ass. With the flurry of violence, the fact everyone was nude had been erased from Zoey's awareness—far from the most important thing to be thinking about. But with Not-Zoey's shapely ass so on display, she was, suddenly, aware again.

Not-Zoey tapped her ass, which jiggled. Thick black letters, 'FREE USE CUM DUMPSTER', stood starkly out against her pale flesh from their body-writing escapades earlier. "You know, I still don't know what you wrote there," Not-Zoey said, "but I have the feeling it's about to be a true statement."

Despite this creature's thorough efforts at killing—or at least hurting—her a second ago, Zoey's cock stiffened, engorging itself. The sight of Not-Zoey's ass presented so eagerly in front of her was too much to fight against.

Not that she wanted to fight against this. This phase of the bossfight was the part Zoey might actually be able to help, like against Mel. The part of the encounter she wouldn't be wholly useless.

And Zoey had made a promise to herself that she'd be getting into her own insides before the shard was over.

It looked like the opportunity had finally arrived.