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Right now, all he could think about was that damn paper crown and those mocking notes that monopolized his mind as his legs rose and fell and his lungs began to strain. Normally, it would take him half an hour to walk up the steep street that led past the palace and to the uppermost reaches of the city. This time, he did it in less than five.

Even before he reached the end of the street, he could see someone up ahead, where the wide streets with their dark paving stones turned to a narrow goat path that led up to the strange little shrine halfway up the volcano. The fact that whoever it was that was up there had gone past anywhere that made sense so late in the day only deepened his certainty that he’d been right to throw caution to the wind. Whatever happened was going to happen right now.

That gave him the motivation to keep pushing himself, and he made it to the trail before the other man made it to the altar. After that, he had to move a little slower, but he went as fast as he could. By the time Simon reached his quarry, though, it was too late. Well, it might have been; he wasn’t sure.

The man had produced a dark orb, and then, after a little fidgeting, the thing began to glow. First, there were dull orange lines, but then, gradually, they began brightening to a violent yellow. That light was bright enough to reveal some familiar designs to Simon as well as make him wince and shade his eyes.

“Stop… Whatever you’re doing… ”Simon gasped, completely out of breath.

The man ignored him and instead tossed it up in the air. Simon fumbled with the words of force to slice the thing into pieces, but by the time he got them out, the man must have used a similar spell because it rocketed into the air and toward the caldera, making his spell miss entirely. Instead of being dashed to pieces, the thing arced high into the air and over the top of the caldera, where it disappeared from sight.

Well, not entirely. The man was wearing a dark cloak, and the gust that came with a spell that had so much force behind it blew the man\'s hood back, revealing the crown that Aikolas mentioned. That was enough to make him ready another spell. This time, he’d use lightning to smite the man, and then…

That resolution failed, and the words died on his lips as the stranger turned to face him, and Simon saw that it was indeed himself. Well, someone that looked a lot like him, for sure. The face was a little older, the hair was a little longer, and the smile was a little more malicious, but all the other details… well, the man was even wearing the same sword that Simon was so used to.

“Well, look who it is,” the other Simon said with a knowing smile. “I didn’t expect to see you quite so soon; we grow up so fast, don’t we?”

“What did you just do?” Simon asked, ignoring the bait.

“Me? I just started a thermal cascade event that will dump a lot of fire into this old mountain and wake up some friends,” the other Simon said, willingly giving away his plan in a way that made Simon very uncomfortable. The villain typically didn’t do that unless they were lying or unless you had no way to stop them. “You could charge in after it, of course. You might even manage to save the city if you wanted.”

“Why wouldn’t I want that?” Simon asked. That’s the whole point!

“You think that’s the point of the Pit?” the other man asked, openly laughing now. “That’s very nearly the opposite of the point. Not everyone can be saved, Simon, no matter what you do. It’s impossible.”

“Maybe,” Simon agreed, “But how many more people need to die just because you need to blow up a volcano?”

“Trust me,” the other Simon said with a small shake of his head. “The world is better off without Ionar. This event disrupts trade throughout the world! You’ve seen the plagues. How much worse do you think they’ll be with more ships going here and there and everywhere.”

“So you’re just like Helades,” Simon spat. “You—”

“Do not use that bitch’s name so casually,” the other Simon shot right back. “Fuck Helades and the horse she road in on. She’s a devil in disguise, man. I don’t want her plan, and I don’t want yours either.”

“But this doesn’t make any sense,” Simon protested, still struggling with all of this. “The volcano has always exploded on this level, and if I … if you were always the cause, then why would the portal even come here. There wouldn’t even be a problem if I wasn’t in the Pit!”

“All good questions,” the other Simon smiled. “But all beside the point. The Pit doesn’t have to make sense! It never has, and it never will. It’s not a puzzle that can be solved. It\'s just a waste heap. A cosmic fucking meat grinder.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Simon didn’t believe any of that, of course. He didn’t understand half of the rules in the place, but so far he didn’t see anything that violated them. Well, nothing happened until I found myself, he corrected himself. Until now, it had just been a matter of learning and preparing, but this… He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Another version of him from the future or some alternate timeline or any other bullshit like that seemed unlikely, but what did that leave? Would an enemy mage have enough knowledge of where he’d be to fuck with him? Could it be a devil escaped from hell? Some sort of crazy mimic or doppelgänger. He had no clue, and it pissed him off. He’d spent months preparing and years waiting. He’d come here to fight a god-damned volcano, which was crazy enough. The last thing he needed was an extra dollop of madness on top, like the cherry on the world\'s most insane hot magma Sunday.

Still, he set all of that aside and said, “Look, there’s still time to stop this. If you didn’t want me to stop it, you would have already killed me, or—”

“Stop it, you say, what an interesting proposal,” the other Simon smiled. “And tell me, what would you stop it with? Maybe a convenient sword of ice? Perhaps some armor custom-made for the occasion?”

A chill went down Simon’s spine at the mockery. This asshole really did know everything. Or, maybe he didn’t, he realized, looking again at the crown. Maybe that thing has some crazy magic that lets him read my mind, and this is all some kind of put on…

The other Simon didn’t react to that thought. Instead, he continued, pretending to look around as if he were missing something.

“Only, I don’t see it anywhere up here. You didn’t really run off half-cocked and leave all that home, did you?” the other Simon taunted, making Simon ball up his fists in anger. “That would be embarrassing. Running all the way up a mountain, walking back down to get your shit together, and then walking all the way back up while…”

He paused as a distant rumble somewhere deep in the mountain made itself known. “Well, you know.”

“If I stop the asshole that causes the eruption, then I don’t need the armor to fight the volcano, now, do I,” Simon said defensively.

“Well, that’ ship has sailed,” the other Simon smirked. “You could try to kill me, but… well, that would just be murder, wouldn’t it.”

Simon was tired. He was tired from the run, and he was tired of the mind games and the new crazy he kept discovering. More than any of that, though, at this moment, he was tired of the moral bullshit. He wasn’t a superhero, and this wasn’t an arch-nemesis that needed to be arrested so he could just escape and kill more people. This was a murderer that detonated a mountain, and if he was responsible for this in every run… well… he had more blood on his hands than Simon ever would, and there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with killing him.

“Vrazig,” Simon whispered, aiming to kill this asshole as quickly as possible. That’s not what happened, though. Instead, the lightning arced briefly around his target before it fizzled and faded.

“Lightning, huh?” the other Simon said. “Not a bad choice. Fast, deadly, and efficient. It\'s not going to work on me, though. I… well, if you haven’t met the whisperers yet, you will. Maybe after that, you’ll understand.”

“How…” Simon demanded, torn between wanting to know what in the hell was happening and drawing his dagger to stab this guy before there were any more surprises.

“You’ll see. One day. That’s not what matters right now, though. What you should be caring about right now isn’t me. It’s your armor. You still keep it in the same spot, don’t you?” the other version of him said with a smile. Then, he began to whisper something under his breath.

Simon tensed. Should he lash out at the man again? Could it really be that he was fighting himself or some alternate version of himself? He wasn’t sure. Before he could be sure about anything, though, something familiar appeared in front of him. It was his herb chest and several feet of the floor underneath it. It just popped into existence. One second, there was nothing, and the next, well, it just was.

Simon looked from that back to the face of the other version of himself, trying to determine how this was even possible, but he had no answers. Greater and Distant definitely had to be used, he thought to himself, but is there a way to say Transfer that causes actual fucking teleportation?

The man before him obviously had some tricks that Simon had not yet conceived. He didn’t seem like he was about to use them to strike Simon down, either. Instead, he stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Pretty cool, right?” the other Simon said to himself. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn how to do that one day, I’m sure. We usually do. We…”

The other Simon’s words trailed off as the volcano rumbled deeply, and the sound of a minor eruption took place somewhere deep inside of it. Whatever this man had done. It was starting.

“You can’t be me,” Simon said finally. “I would never do something like this.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself for someone who still has a lot to learn,” the other Simon said smugly. “You haven’t even found the mazes yet or the queen. Talk to me again when you get past level 50.”

“Why would I cause a disaster?” Simon shot back. “Specifically, why would I cause this disaster? The people of Ionar have been very kind. I would never—”

Simon stopped speaking as the other version of him started to chant again. “Oonbetit!” This time, he punched out with a word of force that took the form of a fist, hoping to knock the man out before he could do anything else.

This time, his spell wasn’t dissipated by whatever mystery technique the whisperers used, but only because the other Simon was gone before the blow landed. Instead, it struck the stone behind where he’d been standing, fracturing the hard igneous rock. The volcano rumbled again in sympathy to the blow and erupted again louder this time. Whatever happened, it was… well, it was happening.

“What the fuck is going on,” Simon muttered to himself as he looked up at the rising smoke, then down at the piece of his floor that held his armor. “Am I really going to do this?”