Nova awoke. The air was thick with the familiar, metallic tang of old blood and dust. His dreamscape.
"Alright then," he sighed, the words dissolving in the oppressive silence. "Let's do this." As always, he stood up and began to walk.
Bones and bodies formed a hellish, undulating landscape. Faint groans, like the last breaths of a dying world, drifted on a non-existent wind.
He reached the throne of bone. A young woman stood before it, her back to him.
"Hello, Nova."
He cringed. What was she even doing up there? "Hey," he managed, his own voice tight.
The woman descended from the throne's grisly platform and approached. Her skin had a light honey tone that contrasted with her milky white pupils, which were visible even behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Intricate, dark coils were twisted atop her head, and she wore a simple dark red sweater with tan cargo pants.
She began to pace around him, her unnerving white gaze examining every scar. Her finger hovered over a jagged gash on his back.
"Big fight. Must've been nice, getting out there."
She stopped, planting herself directly in his path. "Do you miss it down here?" Without waiting for an answer, she spun him around and pointed out at the sea of tormented figures. "Do you think _they_ enjoy it?" "Cut it out," Nova said, backing away from her touch.
"You caused all of this."
"Yeah, following her orders!" he snapped, the words tearing from his throat.
She smirked, "Calm down, man." Her tone was deceptively casual. "It's just one life you took. Oh, wait. Actually, it's thousands."
Crushed by the sudden, immense weight of his sins, Nova's legs buckled. He collapsed to his knees in the filth.
"Can't bear it, right?" She reached down to help him up, but he slapped her hand away, forcing himself to his feet on his own. "Always doing things alone. Just like how you left me here."
"I didn't leave you. I just—"
"Just what?"
"Never mind." He gritted his teeth. "Just let me get to the throne, and you won't have to see me again."
Nova tried to walk past her, but she shoved him back hard. "You know I can't let you do that."
They backed away from each other, shadows gathering around them as both fighters settled into their stances.
"If I have to kick your ass, I will," Nova warned.
"You stand before Limbo's successor," she posed with confidence and glory
Nova rolled his eyes, "I've faced way bigger threats."
They charged simultaneously. Two right hooks met midair with the sharp crack of bone on bone. They leaped back, spun, and kicked high in a seamless, mirrored motion, each balancing on their hands for a split second before dropping back to their feet.
As the woman tried to recover her balance, Nova acted, driving a vicious axe kick down hard onto her shoulder.
"Score one for me." He said, hopping on his feet, ready for a counterattack.
"You think." A sickening pop echoed as her bones began to reform, wreathed in white-hot flames. Every pop and crunch of her realigning skeleton was an unsettling symphony of recovery.
"I should've never given you those glasses." Nova charged her again, but this time she was ready. Using his own momentum against him, she pivoted, turning him and sending him face-first into a pile of brittle bones.
"I was never meant to be this way," she hissed, her voice rising. "But you had to ruin that. You ruined my life _since your birth_."
She attempted the same axe kick on him, but he rolled away at the last second, the blow shattering the ground where he'd been. "You mean _our_ birth," he shot back, springing to his feet.
"Don't lump me in with you!"
The fight resumed. Nova unleashed a flurry of punches, his fists a blur, while the woman delivered a relentless barrage of kicks, as if she possessed infinite stamina. After a clash of blows, she finally landed a solid kick, sending Nova stumbling back.
"Not bad for a blind girl," he wheezed, spitting dust.
"Don't call me 'girl'. We're the same age."
"Yeah, barely."
She ignited cerulean flames all around her. "Behold, divine flames! It took me years of practice to mas—"
Nova cut her off with a loud grunt. "AHHHHHHHHH!" Flames erupted around him, halting her speech.
His flames flared white—intense, though not quite as hot as hers.
She smiled before bursting into laughter, "You're a fucking idiot."
As she laughed, Nova felt embarrassed, "What's so funny?"
She calmed her laughter. "You should know you can't mirror perfection—it's impossible." She hurled a fireball at him, but the flames vanished from both their bodies.
They paused, both breathing heavily, sharing a brief, simultaneous glance at the throne.
"I guess that took a lot out of us," the woman said.
"How'd you find this place?" Nova asked.
"A little birdie told me _she_ was found bound by a modified protection spell. Almost like she was chained up instead of being trapped in a box."
Nova thought back to trapping the succubus and couldn't help but snicker.
"This isn't going to end any differently than last time," Nova said, beginning to circle her. She mirrored his movement, her white eyes locked on him.
"This time, I'll be better."
"Yeah, okay."
Before they could even re-engage, a voice bellowed from the very ground beneath them, a command of absolute power.
"CEASE."
All energy, all strength, was violently torn from their bodies. Nova and the woman collapsed, first to their knees, then flat on their faces, paralyzed.
The voice spoke again, and the ground itself rumbled with the sound. "Nova."
His heart sank. He knew that voice. Memories, dark and deep, flooded back.
"I finally found you, my child."
A pillar of flesh and bone arose from the landscape, its movement a grotesque, wet, tearing sound as each inch of matter pushed against the next. From the top of the pillar stepped a woman in a pristine, dark business suit.
"Nova, my sweet child," she cooed. "How long has it been?"
Neither Nova nor the woman on the ground responded. They couldn't even blink.
"Oh, right!" the woman in the suit said with a cheerful clap. "Look alive, my children."
The moment she spoke, air flooded their lungs. Both of them inhaled sharply, then immediately began choking and gasping, clawing at their throats as their bodies desperately tried to remember how to breathe.
"Gods!" they cried out in unison.
She laughed, a sound like shattering glass. "No. Just me."
The sharp click of heels approached Nova. He barely managed to look up. She analyzed him, her expression one of amused intrigue. "Where's your cloak, sweetie?"
Nova squirmed against his bonds of fatigue. With a final burst of defiance, he managed to give her the bird before his hand flopped uselessly back to the floor.
She snapped her fingers. "Let's make this more comfortable."
Immediately, the hellish domain of bone and bodies warped, dissolving into an empty, flat, white space that stretched to infinity. As Nova and the woman regained their strength, that familiar, terrible voice echoed around them.
"Hello, my children."
Nova let out a ragged sigh. "Hello, Limbo."
The woman raised a perfectly manicured finger, pausing for dramatic effect, threatening to snap it. "Tsk tsk. That's not what you call me."
With a deeper, more defeated sigh, Nova relented.
"Hello, mother."