Poking it did give Eva a slight turn of the stomach.
The real queasiness didn’t come from looking at her blood-mirror. She could feel what it felt. After about sixty seconds of construction, Eva realized she was seeing double. Double of nothing, again because of the darkness, but the odd sensation was still there. It would take some getting used to.
There was a problem with the darkness. Though she could see through her clone’s eyes and she could sense blood, her clone didn’t operate on her mind. It gave a one-way flow of information. She couldn’t tell it where to go or what to attack without real words.
A full minute of construction time left much to be desired as well. Against any opponent like herself, Eva wouldn’t be able to use anything similar to this technique. It simply took too long. As it was, she felt relatively safe from Zoe. The professor was still tossing razor wind aimlessly.
Canceling the darkness spell, Eva almost threw up as she looked on herself. It was like looking into two mirrors with both facing one another. An endless recursion of herself.
It would definitely take some getting used to.
She pinched her eyes shut and leaned in to whisper to her other self. “Attack Zoe,” she said, pointing for good measure.
A razor wind immediately slammed into the tree they were hidden behind. The clone didn’t notice or care. It had received its orders and moved to carry them out.
Eva stayed behind the tree with her eyes shut.
Through her clone’s eyes, she watched Zoe’s eyes widen as fake-Eva charged. They widened even more as a wind blade passed harmlessly through fake-Eva’s midsection. The blood parted to allow the wind to pass before reforming seamlessly.
The clone threw an open-clawed punch at Zoe. The blood mimicked carapace in every way that mattered.
For a moment, Eva felt a jolt of fear. She hadn’t directed her clone to do anything but attack. No qualifiers like ‘non lethal’ or ‘spar’ to dampen any blows.
It swung with all of its might, putting every ounce of strength it had behind the sharp tips of its claw.
Eva’s real body winced as Zoe lifted an arm to block the strike. Her empathetic pain turned to confusion. Zoe hadn’t raised any thaumaturgic shield, yet the claws stopped before touching her arm with space to spare.
Before Eva could begin to consider what had happened, an explosion of air knocked the clone’s arm clean off. It was just blood molded together by magic, after all. The loosed liquid splattered against the ground.
Feedback from the clone jolted Eva’s own arm. Or her phantom mental image of her clone’s sensation. It hurt no worse than the tingling from a limb that had fallen asleep. Something, Eva suddenly realized, that she hadn’t felt in her legs or hands since the transplant.
Zoe faltered. Her expression turned to one of shock as she stared at the missing limb.
The clone was under no such distress. It lashed out with its still intact arm even as the blood within its body bubbled out into a new arm.
Zoe’s distraction almost cost her a rather unflattering scar across her face. As it was, she had to stumble backwards to avoid the claws. Not enough to fall down, but enough to send her off-balance.
And then she noticed the new limb on the clone. Zoe tried to say something, but was immediately cut off by the clone not caring to hear her words in the slightest.
The clone pressed its advantage, moving in harder and faster.
For a few minutes, Eva watched Zoe, surprised at how much of a back foot the professor had found herself on. The clone was nothing if not relentless.
As she watched, Eva opened her own eyes. She sat behind a tree, just focusing on taking in the two differing inputs. It was disorienting and nauseating, but got better as time passed. Definitely not something she should be testing in a combat situation.
And then, while watching her clone’s no-holds-barred beat down of Zoe, Eva had another idea. Another idea that shouldn’t be tested in a combat situation.
Too bad, Eva thought at absolutely nothing, I’m doing it anyway.
Zoe lifted her dagger. Lightning crackled on the end. She pointed the sharp tip of the dagger directly at the clone’s chest.
The clone knocked her arm to one side, sending the charged lightning off into the sky.
Eva used that moment of thunder to enact her plan.
She stepped.
Not to anywhere she could see. Rather, Eva tried to step in her clone’s field of view, directly behind Zoe.
The world moved. Eva’s view through her clone remained relatively steady but her own vision twisted and spun. Dirt and twigs smacked into her face as she flopped over on the ground.
For a moment, Eva just lay there.
Her clone was still fighting Zoe and the professor was far too concerned with fighting back the onslaught to look behind her.
Zoe had started pushing back. Her initial timid attacks had given way to far more vicious strikes. The clone was slowly shrinking as it lost more and more blood. Reddish-black blood had splayed absolutely everywhere; a good portion of the blood was coating Zoe herself and had soaked into her exercise clothes.
Like the giant blood hands Eva could produce, none of the created blood was actually useful. A huge element of blood magic was the shedding of blood. Stolen or otherwise unwillingly taken blood had different properties compared to willingly given blood and both were different from unknowingly given blood. Blood stolen from a third party or taken while the donor was unconscious would both count as unknowingly given.
For a good number of spells, such a thing didn’t matter all that much. It was mostly the more ritualized aspects that required keeping it in mind. Taken blood worked best for damaging effects while given blood strengthened positive rituals.
Magically created blood was neither given nor taken. It wasn’t even shed. It never flowed in the veins of any living creature. As such, it was worthless for haemomancy. Even more so than the blood of an animal.
Still, Eva had been hoping that the clone’s lost blood would rejoin with the whole–it was made out of the stuff–but that didn’t appear to be the case. Her clone was a full head shorter than it should have been.
And it was only shrinking more. Zoe stepped forward, burying her dagger in the clone’s chest. A lightning bolt exploded out its back. Blood splattered around the woods and an acrid scent filled the air.
Through her clone’s eyes, Eva saw herself lying face down on the ground. There was a small twig sticking through her foot, but that wasn’t such a big deal. Her teleport had been successful, if painful.
Eva’s nose wrinkled as she pushed herself up, clamping down on a groan that wanted to escape from the effort. Lying unmoving felt nicer, but she had to end this before she threw up.
Clambering to her feet made enough noise to finally alert Zoe to Eva’s presence a few feet behind the woman.
A breeze brushed a few hairs back behind Eva’s head. That breeze picked up into a gale.
Eva’s feet left the ground. Both of her perspectives flew apart from one another and away from Zoe. One vanished as the clone splattered against a tree.
Lacking the luck of being made out of blood, Eva’s back slammed into a tree. Harsh bark cut into her back–straight through her brand new tee-shirt–and left small wounds. She slid down the tree, further scraping her back, until her feet caught the ground.
Zoe was sprinting towards her. Eva tried lifting an arm to toss out a wreath of flames. Suddenly missing the senses of a second person was just as disorienting as suddenly gaining them. Unable to think clearly, her flamethrower ended up more of a flame-spittle, drooling on the ground in front of her.
A gust of wind knocked her hand to the side before she could try again.
She felt a sharp tap on the top of her head.