Maya rushed forward.
The air around her split as she closed the distance in an instant, her fist aimed directly at Amélie’s skull. Amélie’s third eye flashed - she had already seen it coming. The book in her hands flipped open on its own, pages rustling violently.
"Maya’s fist missed."
The words inscribed themselves into the book. She smiled and tilted herself to the side, causing Maya’s fist to miss her head by mere inches.
Maya grinned as she recovered. "You’re making me want this toy even more."
She spun, her leg sweeping toward Amélie’s torso - but her body flickered and she disappeared, reappearing once again a few meters away.
Maya’s form also flickered and when she reappeared, there were three of her. Four. Seven. Each one attacking from a different angle.
Amélie’s eyes darted across the pages.
Her eyes bled as she read... "The attacks never happened."
Six of the Mayas dissolved into nothing. But the seventh - the real one - still made it through. Her palm slammed into Amélie’s chest, sending her crashing through three buildings before she managed to stabilize.
"Hmm, it really can rewrite reality," Maya said, appearing above her.
"Well, I have a similar trick of my own"
Her eyes spun.
"Reverse."
The buildings Amélie had crashed through suddenly rebuilt themselves—with Amélie still inside them. Stone and steel reformed around her body, crushing her from all sides.
Amélie screamed.
The book in her hands erupted with dark light.
"ANNIHILATE."
A beam of pure destruction exploded outward from her position, vaporizing everything within a two-mile radius. Buildings. Streets. People. Monsters. All of it - reduced to atoms in an instant.
Maya emerged from the blast, her body torn and regenerating simultaneously. Half her face was missing, but it was already growing back.
"Not bad, you can even use my spells." she said, spitting out blood.
She raised her hand.
"Meteor Shower."
The sky above France split open. Massive chunks of burning rock began falling..
Amélie looked up.
Her third eye blazed gold.
"The meteors fell elsewhere."
She bled even more, seeming to be struggling under intense strain of using the book’s powers.
The meteors wavered, their trajectories bending - but Maya didn’t let go.
"Temporal Lock."
The meteors froze in place, suspended between two alternate realities and unable to completely collapse into one.
"Looks like she’s just a kid playing around with a gun," Maya thought.
"There’s no point in all this. You’ll lose anyway, why don’t you just give up," she spoke up.
Amélie didn’t respond, intensely, she intensified her use of the book.
But Maya didn’t let on either, increasing her own output too.
The conflicting forces around the meteor were too intense that the space simply gave out, exploding into huge rifts.
The shockwave flattened everything for miles. Cities crumbled. Mountains shook. The English Channel churned as tsunamis formed from the impact.
Neither of them stopped.
Maya appeared behind Amélie, a golden blade in her hand. She swung...
"The blade shattered."
It did.
Maya didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the broken shards and drove them into Amélie’s shoulder anyway.
Amélie screamed and whirled, her book slamming into Maya’s face with enough force to send her flying across the French countryside. She crashed through the Eiffel Tower - what remained of it - and kept going.
"She doesn’t get up."
Maya got up anyway, blood streaming from her nose and mouth.
"The book is just as strong as its weakest link," Maya observed, wiping her face.
Amélie was breathing heavily now. Blood dripped from her nose. Her third eye was flickering.
"And you?" she spat. "You think time is infinite? You’ll eventually run out of time at some point"
She raised the book high.
Wings erupted from her back - six of them, and made of golden light with a red energy around them. They spread wide, casting shadows across the ruined landscape.
She reached up and plucked a single feather.
It transformed into a quill, dripping with her own blood.
She began writing directly into the book.
...
Maya observed this with an uneasy expression. She indeed didn’t have infinite time.
At least not which she could directly access. Even so...
The clocks in her eyes spun faster.
She spread her arms.
"Chronosphere."
A golden dome expanded outward from her position, racing toward Amélie. Everything it touched stopped - air molecules, light, everything.
Amélie’s quill moved faster.
"TIME MOVES FORWARD."
The dome shattered.
Maya clicked her tongue and raised her hand, a huge golden sword forming in her grip.
"Absolute Severance."
...
A huge blade descended towards Amélie.
She raised her hand.
"ERASE."
A wave of energy swept forward.
Everything in its path simply ceased to be with no resistance.
Maya’s eyes spun backward.
Another her appeared and faced the expanding energy head on.
"The world of time," she intoned as she clashed with the expanding energy, exploding with it upon contact.
Her true self used the cover from the explosion to get close.
"Age."
She touched Amélie’s left wing.
It withered instantly - the feathers crumbling to dust, and the bones becoming brittle before snapping. Amélie screamed as half her wings collapsed, the decay spreading toward her body.
"RESTORATION."
The decay stopped. But the damage was done. Half her wings were gone. The remaining ones were bloodied and broken, barely holding together.
Amélie snarled and thrust the book forward.
"YOUR HEART STOPS."
Maya’s chest seized. Her eyes went wide.
Then she smiled.
"What if I never had one to begin with?"
Amélie’s eyes widened, "Y-you-you, you’re..."
"I’m what?" Maya asked as she kicked her, sending her flying back a few meters.
...
A while later.
The two stood apart amidst the ruins of what had once been Europe, each one looking as beaten as the other.
Amélie held the book in trembling hands. Blood dripped from her fingers, staining the pages. Half her wings were completely torn away. The remaining wings were bloodied and bent at unnatural angles, barely clinging to her back.
Her third eye had dimmed considerably, its golden light flickering weakly.
Maya wasn’t any better.
She was regenerating, but slowly. Extremely so in fact.
Her body was covered in wounds that kept trying to close, only to reopen. One of her arms hung limp, the bones refusing to set properly. Her face was a mess of cuts and bruises.
And the golden clocks in her eyes were flickering on and off. Unstable.
Both of them were breathing heavily.