Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
We both headed to the training room, which was in the basement. It was huge; most of the basement had been converted into one large training room. Hence, it was a large area of 20 m x 40 m, and it was heavily reinforced with magic. Something that already came as part of the room, so we didn't really have to worry about destroying it. We had been testing it, and we couldn't cause any significant damage to it.
Although it was rare, alchemy and transfiguration could be used on the walls and floor, and items created from the material could be easily destroyed. Still, attacks that tried to penetrate them simply did no damage.
"Very well, how do you want to do this?" I asked as I stood in front of Bellatrix. I had created a time bubble that surrounded the entire training room, allowing us to spend several hours training. I was dressed in my black dress, and she had put on Alucard's white suit, which he used when he was in his female form. It suited her extraordinarily well, so much so that I could barely take my eyes off her figure.
"Come on, go all in, don't hold anything back." Bellatrix said simply before stopping. "Well, don't hold anything back as long as you don't hit me in the heart, I still don't have any souls to replace if I die." She said casually, and I nodded. I took a deep breath and looked at Bellatrix once more. She had her wand in her right hand and Jackal in her left hand, as she wanted to test out which fighting style she preferred.
"Ready?" I asked and began to decant my metals. " Start! -"
BANG
I stared in disbelief at Jackal's barrel, pointed at me, smoke rising from the tip, before looking down at my stomach. There was a hole, a huge hole where my stomach should be, guts and blood pouring down it.
Why? Why did she do that?
"Sera! Gold!" My eyes opened wide, and I decanted gold. I didn't really need a stomach to burn it, so I immediately healed myself and took another deep breath as I clutched my stomach in phantom pain. I looked down at my completely unharmed belly as Aria slowly regenerated.
"W-what, why?" I asked, still stunned.
"You froze," Bellatrix's cold response came.
"Of course I froze! My damn stomach disappeared." I growled in Bellatrix's direction as I glared at her, but Bellatrix barely flinched.
"And you healed it in less than a second." I gritted my teeth at her response. She sighed, " Serena, you showed us what Lord Ruler could do. We watched as Rashek practically shrugged off being decapitated, impaled, flayed, and dismembered. By Salazar, an explosion left him burned to the point he was a skeleton, and he regenerated in a matter of minutes!" Bellatrix exclaimed forcefully. "You are immortal, Serena. As long as you have metals, you are practically immortal, but still, you froze. You froze when Dumbledore cut off your arm, and you froze now when I hurt your stomach; you can't freeze in front of an enemy." Bellatrix said firmly. I winced.
She was right, I didn't want to admit it, but she was right.
"So what? You're going to mutilate me until I can get over the pain?" I asked hollowly, and she nodded.
"If it's necessary." Bellatrix looked at me determinedly. "I'd rather be the one to do it than anyone else you fight in other worlds. And you'll do the same with me, I'm immortal now too, despite the lack of souls to cheat death with." Her gaze hardened. "I'll repeat it, you are immortal, I am immortal, we are immortal. It's part of who we are now, part of our repertoire; we can't cower or freeze in a fight. I'd rather take it out of you completely myself than have you freeze like an idiot in front of an enemy again, and I'll have you do the same to me." I closed my eyes as I took a deep breath.
"Well, you're right, I've been putting it off for a long time. I used the excuse to avoid becoming a Savant. But now, I have the defenses, I can burn all the metal I need." I gritted my teeth. I wasn't about to enjoy this training in the least, but Bellatrix was right, it's better to do it in a controlled place than in front of an enemy.
"Do you have enough gold?" she asked, and I nodded.
"I have enough metals of everything, and for you to use them with your medallion as well, it's easy to multiply them with Compounding." I said simply. Bellatrix nodded. It was true, compounding a metal mind gave me 10 times the attribute I had stored. I just returned that multiplied attribute to ten metal minds, then used one of those metal minds to create another 10, rinse and repeat.
Or, better yet, I could create a loop to exponentially increase my attributes. Let's say, one is composed into 10, I store those 10 in a metal mind and do composition on that metal mind and generate 100 of the attribute, and so on.
Although I had certain limitations, every attribute generated passes through me, so it generates a certain level of tension in my body, the higher the amount I'm trying to store.
After a while, the loop reaches diminishing returns; instead of a 1:10 conversion, it becomes 1:8, 1:5, 1:3, 1:2, and eventually 1:1.5, at which point the benefit becomes marginal to continue.
Also the more attribute I try to cram into a metal mind small enough for me to eat, the less time it is stored, if I can store my senses 1:1 with normal Feruchemy I could store a single metal mind to run 24/7 for a full 72 hours, if I try to store 10 times that it drops considerably, not so much that it lasts only 7 hours, but it was closer to 20 hours, and it kept getting lower and lower.
Plus, it takes time, and I'd only be creating one metal mind, which might as well be useless. Decanting a metal mind with 100 times the stored senses gave me sensory overload. Also, it was very disconcerting to go from 1 to 100 suddenly.
So, I tried to find my limit that I was comfortable with, and multiplying my attributes by 30 was the best I could get without completely freaking out or experiencing any adverse effects. So, I replaced all my piercings, rings, and bracelets with metal minds, which increased my attributes by 30. I also have plenty of replacements in my inventory.
I even have several larger ones in 1-gram beads to swallow and burn in case of emergencies.
So I've been generating a lot of metal minds. It's easy while you're composing, the metal minds. Because storing them this way, the only attribute that is stored is the one I'm composing at the time, and not my base attributes. So I didn't have to suffer any side effects from losing attributes. Storing health completely sucked.
And since getting metals isn't really a problem, as long as I had time, I could multiply them practically infinitely.
The only reason I hadn't been generating metal minds in large numbers until recently was that my Pocket Space was small. Now that I could designate practically any part of the mansion as a Pocket Space, I could pull it out whenever I wanted, and I could create them in much larger numbers.
It was time to become a metal savant. It would take some time, but time was what I had the most of. My body had to adapt to the metals I burn to receive them more efficiently, and since I didn't have to worry about side effects or addiction, it was a blessing.
I swallowed large amounts of metals, both standard and compounded metal minds, and felt the furnace inside my body immediately burn them away.
"La Verità!" I exclaimed as I transformed. If Bellatrix wanted to do this without holding back, I would do it without holding back. Despite having transformed, I was still wearing a black dress. Aria had eaten my clothes from the transformation as soon as they appeared without even hesitating. I took Cia and pulled her by her metal ring on her waist so that she would stay inside my clothes. She was placed between my breasts, where she could see through my cleavage.
"Ready?" Bellatrix asked as she picked up Jackal. I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Menace Warner!" I waved my tail in Bellatrix's direction, and a wave of dark magic launched itself in her direction. Before she could react, I cut off her arm where she had Jackal.
I shuddered violently as I looked at Bellatrix's shocked face and tried to stifle the panic that was building inside me. I was only able to breathe again when Bellatrix's arm began to turn into a mass of darkness as it regenerated into Bellatrix's body.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and my hands stopped shaking, something I didn't know they had been doing.
"Okay, this is really disconcerting," Bellatrix said calmly, though I could hear her voice shaking slightly. She took a deep breath as she looked at her newly regenerating arm with Jackal in her fingers, the weapon having returned to her easily.
BANG I dodged the shot in my direction. I could finally see Bellatrix start to laugh dangerously. This would not be pleasant for either of us.
----
I clapped my hands and slapped the wall with my palms, immediately creating dozens of metal weapons that shot out in Bellatrix's direction. I pushed them into the air with my Steel Allomancy to increase their attack power. Bellatrix raised a wall of dark mist from the Yami Yami no mi, absorbing them all. She extended her other hand and the newly created weapons, mostly intact, shot out in my direction. I clicked my tongue.
"Reducto!" I launched a strong Reducto on the weapons, and they all turned to dust immediately.
"KAZIKLI BEY!" Tch, I prepared myself for the activation of her Noble Phantasm; it was always a pain when she activated it. My eyes quickly scanned the ground as I felt the stakes growing from my chest, shit, I had forgotten about that. She had already hit me again with her spear a little while ago.
I ignored the stakes sticking out of my chest as I watched Bellatrix approach with a crazed grin. She was standing on top of some stakes coming in my direction, as if she were surfing, quickly with Kazikli Bey in her hand.
snap
An explosion engulfed Bellatrix, but that didn't stop her, even though the blast had burned large patches of her skin and blown off half her face and one eye, shit, it was too close.
I tried to move in the air, but I was too slow. Bellatrix cut off both my hands with her spear, tch, what a bummer, I had just lost my tattoos and my metal minds again.
In the few moments it took for my hands to regenerate, Bellatrix was already spinning her spear in my direction. I arrived in time for my palms to fully regenerate, and I was able to clap; the alchemy activated without a hitch.
My skin transformed into a complex, yet malleable patch of graphene. I had copied Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist. The spear, despite the force Bellatrix could generate by stacking her abilities, barely pierced the graphene skin. Still, it was enough to activate the Gura Gura no Mi.
My internal organs were annihilated along with the stakes in my body, and I couldn't help but cough up blood in Bellatrix's face. She smiled even wider as she licked my blood from her mouth. In other circumstances, it would have been sexy, but right now it only irritated me more than it excited me.
My organs were regenerating at an enormous speed, only to continue being pulverized by the concentrated vibrations of her devil fruit. I had to get rid of it.
I clapped my now healthy hands again and created the alchemical tattoos on them. I grabbed Bellatrix's spear and completely froze it, as well as Bellatrix's arms. I immediately turned my body, as much as I could in my position, and swallowed several metallic minds x50. I began to burn them to generate x500 in strength, weight, and speed, and kicked Bellatrix's side. I could feel her bones breaking under such force.
Bellatrix was sent flying from her spot to the ground, her arms frozen in place, gripping Kazikli Bey. I grabbed Bellatrix's spear and spun around to throw the spear straight at its owner's head. With a loud explosion, Kazikli Bey shattered Bellatrix's head.
I took advantage of the brief respite to purge all the organ juice inside me, and my organs immediately regrew, leaving me feeling whole again. I looked down to find Bellatrix and… she had disappeared.
I immediately turned around, too late to see Bellatrix fire at Jackal, from practically 2 meters away, right at my face. I could see the trajectory of the bullet and reacted in time, but I couldn't move fast enough to dodge it entirely.
The bullet took half my face off. That thing is definitely a force to be reckoned with, with how hard that shit can shoot.
"Malice Nest!" I created a web of power and captured Bellatrix in place, but I knew it wouldn't last that long. I took coins out of my inventory. I threw them in the air before burning the iron in my stomach to increase my physical weight and accelerated the burning by multiplying my weight by a couple of thousand times, and pushed the coins.
The coins shot out with insane force and speed. They pierced Bellatrix's body as if it were nothing. I had made sure that none of them would reach her heart. After so much time fighting, I could now calculate it without any problem at all. The invisible blue lines that my Allomancy linked to the metals also helped a lot, so the coins hit the rest of her body looking as if she was riddled with bullets.
My face regenerated, and I immediately followed Bellatrix, who was falling. Her hole-riddled body was moving in the air, and she took out her wand and pointed it at me.
"Sectumsempra!" I dodged my own curse, launched by Bellatrix with some difficulty, but it still ended up hitting my right shoulder, leaving a cut. I gritted my teeth, as it cost more health from my metallic mind to cure a curse, but I still forced myself to burn them faster.
As soon as Bellatrix's body hit the ground, I fell on top of her roughly and clapped my hands, quickly grabbing Bellatrix's arms and placing them on top of her partially regenerated head. The ground began to mold itself enclosing Bellatrix's arms, legs, neck, and waist, before hardening.
Bellatrix hadn't lost her smile. As I felt my body being impaled by stakes, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the stakes, emanating from Bellatrix's Noble Phantasm, grew from the ceiling. Before they grew even more from the ground, impaling my entire body like a pincushion.
I can't help but cough on Bellatrix's face again as I stand centimeters away from her face. This time, Bellatrix kisses me hard, or she tries her best without being able to move her head freely, and I respond with the same repressed ferocity.
We had been at it for 20 hours, mutilating each other for 20 hours.
And, I could finally say that I wouldn't freeze in pain anymore. All from exposure to pain firsthand. Exposure therapy, I guess. The first few hours were excruciating, but by the fifth hour, it had started to fade. By the tenth hour, I barely felt it, so I couldn't deny how effective this whole fight had been, even though I had absolutely hated it at the beginning.
Once I was completely pain-free, whether it was because I had become numb to the pain or some positive side effect of my martial arts talent or something else I couldn't think of right now, I was able to enjoy the fight more.
On the contrary, Bellatrix was in ecstasy the entire time, her face beaming with a crazy smile. The worst thing was that I found her even more attractive, and I could tell that Bellatrix was also getting excited as we continued to fight. So both of us had been holding back our lust a lot during the fight.
Now neither of us could contain our hunger for each other. I used my fangs to bite her neck. It had been a while since I had Bellatrix so tied under me that I couldn't help it. I wanted to mark her as mine even though I knew she would heal, but that wouldn't stop me from trying.
Bellatrix moaned loudly as I licked the marks I had just created. There was a delicious irony in marking a vampire with a pair of fangs on the neck. I kissed her jaw and bit her lip provocatively. She moaned in frustration. I made the stakes still in my body disappear and moved. -
"ARGH! WAIT, WAIT!" Bellatrix cut me off, and I immediately stood up from the spot, undid her bonds, and looked at her worriedly. She stood up and looked at me in disbelief; next to us, at her feet, was Cia with a furious face. "Your stupid fairy just Crucio'd me!" She said incredulously. I stopped stiffly before groaning in frustration and looking at Cia. She had an angry and frustrated look on her face. I sighed tiredly.
"In her defense, you destroyed her several times," I said dryly. Yes, Cia had been collateral damage several times. The first time it happened, we both stopped dead in our tracks. I almost panicked when I felt the pull of magic that I recognized, and Cia immediately regenerated. She shot a look of pure, intense rage in Bellatrix's direction.
It was a good sign that Cia could regenerate. However, extremely rare, my Schiavos by nature could not regenerate, but that Cia and Aria did so was not normal. Perhaps it is because of the deep connection I have with both; both were connected to my magic all the time. Unlike my typical Schiavo, which, after their creation and orders, were completely separate entities.
It was weird, but very welcome. I didn't have to worry about taking care of Cia closely, and from the looks of it, she doesn't feel any pain. At no point did she let out any scream or sign of pain when she was destroyed several times. Only discomfort and hatred towards Bellatrix.
"It was a fight," Bellatrix replied as she rolled her eyes. "Besides, how the hell can she cast the cruciatus curse, and why did it only affect my foot? Although it didn't hurt as much as I expected, it just caught me off guard." She shrugged and sighed.
"She can cast magic on her own, any and every spell I know. The only downside is her magic is more… scaled down; everything shrinks down to match her size." I explained. Cia was looking at me with her arms crossed. "You did a good job, Cia, you were wonderful, go get some sugar from the kitchen." I told Cia, placating her, and it worked. Cia preened at the praise, and a huge smile grew on her face. I created a portal to the kitchen, and she walked in immediately. "So where were we?" I purred in Bellatrix's direction. She looked at me for a few seconds before shrugging her shoulders and charging in my direction.
Author's Notes: First! Sorry for the time of this chapter ! I didn't think I'd ever finish it! Unfortunately, this, and a chapter of my other novel, are the only ones I've been able to write for the past few days. I've been running around all week and had little to no time to write at any point, recently today I had some free time to finish this chapter and I just finished it a few minutes ago!
Now, next week I'll be just as busy, so again, I don't know how much or if I'll be able to post chapters next week, so, sorry, but thanks for reading and the support and happy new year!
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