Chapter 20Shadow Twin

The Rock Guais roar—and the sound does not simply echo, it shakes the foundations of reality. The entire town trembles, the valley itself seems to recoil, and within the buildings, children wail with the particular terror that comes from knowing something too large, too terrible, exists just beyond thin walls. Parents clutch their little ones tighter, their hands trembling as they try to soothe with words that cannot possibly matter.

All three Rock Guais are now in the town, their bulk blocking starlight, their breathing a rhythm of destruction—loud as oxen, deep as earthquakes, hungry as the void between stars. They move with slow-burning rage, each step deliberate, each breath a promise of violence, converging upon their target like mountains deciding to rearrange themselves.

“Ok, Zobito, how should we beat these things?” Peach’s voice carries tactical focus now—the sound of someone thinking three moves ahead. She takes measured steps backward, her stance lowering into readiness, every muscle coiled like a spring. “The Elite Riders got onto the Rock Guai’s body to strike its heart or something, right?”

“Yes, the Rock Guai is hardy, but the stronger things are, the harder they fall.” Zobito’s voice hums with the precision of ancient wisdom. “There are two weaknesses we can exploit. Option one: your gauntlets are armed with the Comet Sting, which you can deploy to pierce the Rock Guai from its upper back. This is a faster approach.”

The Rock Guais growl—a sound that rumbles through the ground like thunder beneath the earth—and they turn, their massive forms pivoting with surprising speed, their intent clear in every line of their stone bodies. They charge, and the ground trembles with each footfall.

Peach’s armour wings snap open. She launches skyward, the dragonfly appendages carrying her higher, faster, leaving the Rock Guais’ reach behind. “And option two?”

“We can disrupt their elemental balance. Rock Guais are comprised mainly of the Earth element. I can latch onto one and discharge Wood elemental qi through their body and slowly disable one from within.”

“Ok, both sound like great options.” Peach hovers in the air, high above the giants, watching them crane their stone heads upward, their roars full of frustration at this target they cannot reach. “Which option shall we begin with?”

“Yes.”

“Pardon me?”

“We need to first lead these freaks of nature away from the townsfolk. Let’s fly toward the town’s entrance.”

“Oh! Lead the way.”

The Rock Guais track their movement—three sets of stone eyes following with predatory focus, their bodies turning with the deliberate slowness of mountains deciding to move. They follow, their footsteps shaking the earth, their presence a promise of destruction deferred but not denied.

One Rock Guai reaches out, its massive hand closing around an ox cart like a child grasping a toy. The cart becomes a projectile, hurled through the air with force that would crush buildings. Peach spins mid-air, moving with instinct she has yet to fully understand, the cart whistles past, close enough to feel the wind of its passage.

The other Rock Guai takes a different approach. Its hand closes around the inn’s roof, fingers digging into timber and tile, and it rips—tearing away structure like paper. Wood and tile explode into the air, a storm of debris hurled skyward. From the second floor, two children scream—their voices small against the chaos, their terror palpable. Beneath them, impossibly, the innkeeper continues to snore—a testament to either exhaustion or alcohol that defies logic.

“Incoming projectiles.” Zobito’s warning carries urgency wrapped in calm.

Her bloom opens, petals spinning faster, faster, building to a crescendo. Bright light erupts—not gentle, but scorching, transforming the flying debris into cinders that fall like black snow.

“No littering!” Peach’s shout rings with determination. Two ribbons of light shoot from her gauntlets, expanding as they move, becoming great arcs of celestial fire that slice through the air. They brush across the remaining timber, cutting it to splinters, burning what remains, leaving only ash drifting on the wind.

Together, Peach and Zobito fly—leading the giants away from the town, away from the families huddled in fear, until the Rock Guais’ massive forms pass beyond the town’s boundaries, their roars fading slightly with distance.

“Ok, we’re good here.” Peach halts mid-air, her form hovering like a star that has decided to stop moving. She draws breath, focuses, lets the ventriloquism flow through her—a skill she has never truly learned yet executes with perfect mimicry. “Yip! Yip! Yiiip!”

The effect is immediate. Several disoriented Husk Soldiers snap to attention, their bodies straightening as if pulled by invisible strings. They turn in perfect unison—a formation born of desperate control—and begin running toward the Rock Guais, their hollow eyes fixed on targets that should be allies.

They scramble up the giants’ forms like insects climbing mountains, their carapaces clacking against stone, their movements frantic and purposeful. The Rock Guais roar with frustration—not at Peach, but at these small annoyances crawling across their bodies. Their massive arms swing, swatting at the Husks like a person trying to brush away flies, but the creatures persist, driven by commands that echo in their empty minds.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this.” Peach’s laughter rings out from above, a sound that carries both triumph and absurdity. She watches the chaos unfold—a scene so surreal it borders on comedy. “I should open a restaurant with these Husks.”

“Noted, Maiden Peach. Although they may scare off customers.” Zobito’s bloom pulses with gentle humour. “May I suggest employing them as kitchen hands only?”

“Hehe, you’re too helpful, I’m joking, Zobito.” Peach giggles, the sound light against the weight of battle. “That’s actually a pretty awesome idea. Takeaway only.”

One Rock Guai, frustrated beyond measure, grabs a Husk and hurls it skyward. Peach stands in the air, arms folded, and simply glides sideways—a movement so effortless it seems to defy physics. The Husk passes harmlessly by, spinning end over end before crashing back to earth.

“Oh no, you didn’t. You’re mine.” Peach’s voice carries determination wrapped in playfulness. She turns to Zobito. “Zobito, you take the Rock Guai next to it.”

“Affirmative.”

Peach and Zobito descend like twin stars falling from heaven—Peach angling toward one Rock Guai, Zobito toward another, their paths diverging with purpose.

The Rock Guai before Peach has a Husk clinging to its face, obscuring vision, driving it to blind fury. Its massive arms swing through empty air, each motion carrying the force of a landslide. Peach zips through the chaos, her form a blur of light, and releases ribbons from her gauntlets—streams of celestial fire that spiral outward, wrapping around the giant’s arms, its torso, binding it like chains of pure energy.

She lands on its back, her boots finding purchase on stone that should be impossible to stand upon, and pulls. The ribbons tighten, their light searing into the Rock Guai’s form, scorching where they touch. The Husks clinging to its body evaporate as the ribbons slice through them—cut like silken tofu, disintegrating into black smoke that drifts away on the wind. The Rock Guai itself hisses with heat, smoke rising from where the ribbons burn into its elemental flesh.

The giant is restrained—bound by chains of light, struggling against bonds it cannot break.

Peach’s palm opens, and the Comet Sting emerges from her gauntlet’s chamber—a weapon that gleams with deadly purpose, its tip sharp enough to pierce stone. She holds it aloft, spins it in her palm with theatrical flair, watching it catch starlight.

“Neat!” She stops the spin, grips the piercer with intent. But movement catches her eye—Husks, their control returning as her ventriloquism fades, their hollow eyes turning toward her with renewed purpose.

“Bad Husks! You’re fired!” Another Comet Sting releases from her right gauntlet. Peach spins both piercers now, creating a display of motion that captures the Husks’ attention—their empty gazes tracking the spinning weapons, mesmerised by the movement.

Then she strikes.

Left, right, jabs that pierce carapace like paper, each strike precise, deadly, efficient. The Husks snarl once—a sound of confusion more than pain—and then evaporate, their forms dissolving into smoke.

Peach glances to her right. The other Rock Guai swings at Zobito, its palm cutting through air with enough force to level buildings—but Zobito’s petals disperse, her form becoming insubstantial as mist. The hand passes through empty space, and in that moment, hundreds of petals converge, latching onto the Rock Guai’s back like parasites of light.

Zobito’s core shifts to azure—a colour that speaks of wood elemental qi, of disruption, of systems failing. The light seeps into the Rock Guai, flowing through cracks and fissures, spreading through its body like poison through veins. The giant’s legs weaken, buckle, and it collapses to one knee, its body lowering itself to the ground with the slow inevitability of a mountain settling.

Peach winks, signals a thumbs-up toward Zobito. The bloom blinks back—a celestial acknowledgment of teamwork.

But time is running short. The effect of Peach’s ventriloquism fades, and the furthest Rock Guai steadies itself, shaking off the remaining Husks like a dog shedding water, its focus returning with terrible clarity.

“Ok, let’s do this quickly!” Peach’s voice carries urgency wrapped in determination. She spins the Stings once more—a final display of readiness—then one slides back into her right gauntlet with a click of finality. Her left hand grasps the remaining Sting, her body coiling like a spring, and she thrusts downward toward the Rock Guai’s back, aiming for the heart that pulses somewhere within that mountain of stone.

SLAM!

But the Comet Sting never finds its target.

Something strikes Peach with the force of a meteor—an impact that comes from nowhere, moving faster than thought, faster than reaction, faster than possibility. She is flung through the air like a discarded doll, spinning uncontrolled, the world reduced to a blur of motion.

She crashes into the giant tree that stands like a sentinel at the battlefield’s edge, and the impact echoes through the valley like thunder. CelestCore armour—supposedly invincible—cracks. Plates peel away, fragments scattering like broken stars. Her consciousness shatters, fragments, dissolves into darkness.

“Maiden Peach!” Zobito’s voice rings with panic—a sound so foreign it breaks the careful calibration of her voice. Her orb blinks rapidly, desperately, and her petals burst outward, swirling toward Peach’s fallen form like a storm of concern. They latch onto her body, onto the armour that still clings to her, and release a warm orange glow—healing energy that flows like liquid sunlight, mending what can be mended, restoring what can be restored.

Peach gasps—a sound torn from lungs that have forgotten how to breathe—and her eyes snap open. Coughs rack her body, each one a reminder that she is still alive, still fighting. “Ow, ow, oww… what happened?”

Her vision clears slowly, painstakingly, and she sees it—a figure that has appeared as if from nothing, leaping onto the Rock Guai that should be Zobito’s victory. A hand—sleek, metallic, precise—reaches into the heap of boulders, and a bright white light erupts, purging the azure glow like a rapid river.

The Rock Guai rumbles—deep, guttural, alive again—and slowly, it rises back to its feet, Zobito’s work undone in a single gesture.

Peach and Zobito look up together—two gazes turning toward the same impossible truth. Above them, dark clouds part, and moonlight spills through like liquid silver, illuminating a figure that should not be possible.

Sleek metallic plates. Two all-seeing scopes. Features identical to Zobito in every way—a mirror image that defies Zobito’s logic, that breaks the heaven’s mandate, that speaks of something so wrong it makes the cosmos itself hesitate.

“Impossible…” Zobito’s petals freeze mid-spin, locked in place as if time itself has stopped. Even the divine machine, the being of infinite calculation, cannot process what stands before them. “Impossible.”

“Ow… what… what is it, Zobito?” Peach’s voice trembles—not with pain now, but with anticipation, with the dawning horror of the impossible answer.

“It’s… me.”

The metallic figure straightens—a motion so precise, so mechanical, it speaks of something that has never been truly alive, something born of calculation rather than creation. Moonlight streams across its form, revealing every detail: the sleek celestial alloy plates that mirror Zobito’s design, the two all-seeing scopes that pulse with internal light, the perfect symmetry that makes it a doppelgänger from nightmares.

Below, the Rock Guais grumble—a sound that carries renewed purpose, renewed fury. They turn their massive heads toward Peach and Zobito, and the air itself seems to thicken with intent.

The clone Zobito stares—not with curiosity, not with recognition, but with mechanical precision that reduces everything to numbers, to probabilities, to targets. It assesses its counterpart with the cold calculation of an imperial artisan examining flawed jade, measuring every fracture, every imperfection that marks it for destruction.

“Rogue identified.” The clone’s voice cuts through the humid night—identical to Zobito’s in tone, but empty of warmth, of life, of everything that makes Zobito more than machine. “All defects must be purged.”

The clone’s scopes ignite—orange light blazing with terrible intensity, harnessing, charging, becoming something that makes the air itself suffocate. Energy pools around the battlefield, heat rising like an invisible fire, reality itself beginning to warp under the weight of otherworldly power.

Two red dots appear—laser sights that trace across the ground with predatory haste. One stops on Zobito’s core, marking it with surgical precision. The other finds Peach’s chest plate, painting a target over her heart.

“Eek!” Peach’s gasp escapes like a small creature caught in a trap. “L… Lotus… Lotus Forge…”

“No…” Zobito’s voice breaks, carrying doom that goes beyond fear—a recognition of something that defies mortal comprehension. “This is worse…”

“W…what? What do you mean this is worse? What is it?” Panic floods Peach’s voice. “What do we do?”

The dots split—two becoming five, five becoming too many to count, each laser sight tracing paths across Peach and Zobito’s forms. They spin, move, dance across their targets with patterns too complex to track. They mark every vital point, every weakness, every place where a single strike could end everything.

The dots lock.

“Run.”

The word escapes Zobito like a prayer, like a farewell, like the last thing she will ever say.

And then—

ZRROOOOOM!