Prince Haster Soma the Breaker, first in line to the Isten Throne, was not one to follow someone else's orders. He was a Beast Tamer, the best of his kind in the whole world, and so it was he who did the ordering, and it was all the lesser beings whose Spirits he broke that followed.

And yet here he was, following orders in a task force organized by the League of Honored Families. It would've been insulting to coerce his participation even should he have been in charge, but to be made a mere member among members, an equal... he had never been more insulted.

It became even more insulting once he met his new companions. Sunri Ramadvani and Boras Olympus were a pair of unserious fools, almost bafflingly so. Falnir Thorson had strength but not much else. Arthur Pendragon was a laughable man whose unearned sense of self-importance was almost big enough to rival his utter lack of value.

Haster had, in effect, been forced to collaborate with a gaggle of inept imbeciles. The only saving grace was that, out of their seven-man band, he wasn't the only competent one. That woman whose name he couldn't remember, she'd seemed at least somewhat competent. And then there was their nominal leader, who Haster had to admit might deserve his respect. He'd never truly accept another's authority over his, of course, but if he had to temporarily pretend like he had then at least it had been made believable.

So he didn't want to be here, but his father had insisted and, when that hadn't worked, bribed. That bribe was in his hands now, a long branding iron made of impossibly black metal, reflecting no light so that it seemed pure darkness in his hand.

Ravdarakas, the Dominion Rod. His birthright, passed down countless generations.

It was no true bribe as he'd have inherited it eventually, but his father was still in good health and would unfortunately live on for who knew how many more years. Haster would have gladly killed the man to skip over so much pointless waiting, and perhaps that was why this deal had been offered. Help the League and Ravdarakas would be his immediately. The bargain would save him the effort and expense of hiring an assassin and covering up the murder, plus it would also let him test the Talisman in a controlled setting.

And how was that test going?

Haster smiled to himself. Of course, it would be going perfectly. He'd raised himself to it, after all. The rest of his family going back however many thousands of years had always been too meek, had lacked imagination. They'd depended too much on Ravdarakas, had taken its potential for granted, and now that he held it in his hands he could even understand why.

Whatever the rod branded became yours in mind and body, a total wresting of control any Beast Tamer could only dream of. It took so long to build a Spirit Bond, so much laborious effort just to tame a single creature, that any shortcut through the process was worthy of praise. Even the strongest monster could be brought to heel in an instant.

But so what? Haster had trained to do the same for years all on his own, had honed his skill in it until it cut through Spirit like a scalpel. He didn't need a Talisman for that.

No, what Ravdarakas could give him was scale. Numbers. Husks his Spirit could fill. He'd practiced a lifetime for it, had trained himself not only to dominate other bodies but supplant them entirely, live through their senses as easily as he lived through his own. He'd started with one, then two, then more and more until eventually he hit a limit. No man's Spirit could stretch so far, bond to so many without sacrificing some control.

At least not without help. Not without Ravdarakas.

Poor father, Haster thought, almost sick with pleasure. Obey or disobey, this was always going to be the result the moment that pathetic man let go of the iron grip he'd wrapped Ravdarakas in for so many years. What a fool. The man had been so terrified of what would happen should he disobey the League that he'd happily given his son the key to his own downfall.

And not just him. The whole House of Soma had debased itself for too long, eating at the foot of the League in some cowardly attempt to survive the lapping waves of history.

I'll start with the Ranger Corps. Yes, the Debons first, them and their whole operation here in the States. Then the Great Houses. Then the League. Then the world. Yes. Yes!

Something blurred by his vision. No, not his vision. One of his thralls. Haster turned some others in the same direction, a few dozen stonehead hawks all swerving in the air and zeroing in on the rogue object. He looked through their eyes all at once, a kaleidoscope of sight honed in on what he now saw to be a group of three Magicians.

They flew through the air—ran on it, Haster saw—or at least one of them did, carrying the other two by the arm like a couple of loose jackets. Frowning now, Haster sent some of his hawks at them, claws ready to rip through flesh, but they were rebuffed as soon as they came close, bludgeoned and sliced apart. Interesting.

The carrier dropped the other two, deploying them amidst the army of monsters. They landed like two meteorites, sending up plumes of sand, and almost at once Haster could feel the strength of their Spirit. Waves upon waves of it from both, one sparking so wildly it seemed to flow visibly from his body in blue-white lashes of flame, the other emanating it like nuclear radiation.

And from the looks of it.... they were children.

Haster stood up, balancing easily on the monster he'd been sitting on even as it shifted left to right with each heavy step. Stumplegs were dull and slow but large enough to provide a good view of things, which was why he'd picked this one as his mount.

Narrowing his eyes, he glared out against the sand and sun to watch as the two Magicians on the ground started fighting through his beasts. The smaller ones were knocked up unconscious in the air with a single blow, and even the larger ones got pushed back. In the air, he still could see through his avian monsters the flying Magician darting around, dipping up and down his forces. Haster could already feel minds winking out, closing to him, Spirit Bonds snapping like pulled threads. Children, but strong children. Very interesting indeed.

A worthy enough test.

Haster closed his eyes and breathed in the dry desert air, reveling not in the smell of unwashed fur or sulfuric heat that permeated the air but instead on the complexity of his sensory experience. Winding winds, shifting feet, rumbling shifts of sand. Panic and rage, the excitement of combat, even the agony of all those now wounded monsters that had begun to litter the ground.

And above all, the sheer adrenaline that came with hundreds of combined bodies fighting to draw blood. It was enough to get drunk on.

He chuckled to himself, planting Ravdarakas like a cane on the stumpleg below. The brand sizzled on the monster's flesh, burning a bright white Spirit smoke, but there was no reaction. Haster barely felt the pain from their connection, overpowered as it was by everything else.

"Don't die too soon," he muttered, watching and directing the battle through endless perspectives. "Let me enjoy the power that will trample the Earth..."

- - - — MKII — - - -

The key was to keep moving. If Red stopped to think or catch his breath or even look around, he'd get bit or slashed apart in a second. His body had to react on its own, shift automatically from a duck into a leap into a twirl into a spinning roundhouse kick without a moment of hesitation. His vision had to be as clear in its periphery as it was in its center. His ears and nose and even tongue had to work at full capacity, the full range of his surroundings lapping at his senses like waves against a shore.

Most of all, his Spirit rang with the light of other Spirits. He could almost see them from behind his head, could sense all the presences aiming for his neck an instant before they lunged, hair standing on end all over his skin like miniature receivers.

Twinkling lights in the dark. That's what they felt like. Some glittered more brightly than others, but they all swerved and stomped and flew all around him. Spirit Sense, Red knew. The very same intuition he'd always used subconsciously, given a name.

And brighter than any of the other lights was Chase's. It seemed to almost pump out of the other boy's body, a constant stream of energy shooting out of his pores as he fought at Red's back. It had surprised Red a bit the first time he'd seen it, someone having that much of the stuff flowing out of them. He'd gotten used to being the only one who could give off the same amount of pressure.

An elephantesque trunk came down at him like a hammer, and Red grabbed it mid-swing. He pulled the whole monster into a flying swing before turning and throwing it back into the crowd. "How're you doin', Glowstick?!"

Nearby, Chase cut through three frog-like abominations in an instant, his Hardblade reflecting the glow coming off his skin. "It feels like we're not even making a dent!"

It was true. No matter how many of the beasts Red broke against his fists, more just kept coming. More terrifying than any of their appearances, their sizes, the sharpness of their claws or the void darkness of their open mouths, was the almost manic intensity with which they pushed forward toward their would-be victims. The big ones had no qualms with crushing the small ones on their way to Red and Chase, while the small ones often clambered atop the big ones only to leap out for the same targets at the soonest opportunity. No instinct for survival, no hesitation, no fear despite all the injured or dead monsters they stampeded over. It was an unnatural sort of relentlessness Red had never seen in his life.

Stranger was the mark all these monsters held in common. A charred circle that contained a smaller circle within it, all burned into skin and fur. Some kind of cattle brand, one each monster featured on their head or their necks or somewhere in their flanks.

All the while the Magician controlling them stood on his mammoth some distance away, that strange black rod in his hands, watching. The man's Spirit was hard to place amidst all the others, but Red was sure it flowed in their direction.

"He hasn't moved a bit," Red said, holding back a scaled leopard even as it tried to claw his eyes out. "We're gonna have to go to him, I guess."

Chase nodded, panting. That Trick of his took a lot out of him, Red had noticed. A kind of temporary boost that strained the body beyond its limits.

Red could've kept fighting all day and all night, but for the other boy's sake it was probably time to move forward with the plan. "I think that's enough showing off!" he said, kicking out and punting the leopard creature like a football over the crowd. "The Big Guy's gotta have the tags by now! Follow me!"

Exerting himself for real now, Red spread his legs and twisted his hips like a shot put thrower. When he threw his hand forward, he did it with his palm wide open and headed towards Haster.

That got a response, the man crouching low on his mammoth as if to whether some storm. But rather than hit him, Red's Remote Control was aimed lower at all the monsters that covered the space between them. His push, extended and carrying the same force as any blow he could deal physically, slammed like an invisible rocket into the crowd of monsters, pushing them aside in two great split waves of flesh, scale, and fur.

"C'mon!" Red said, sprinting through the gap.

Chase blinked, then followed just before the respite started to close back up behind them. "You could do that this whole time?!"

"I'm a man of many talents!"

Haster was still crouched low, watching them come to him. A lithe man, he was covered in loose silks of red and orange that waved chaotically with every shift in the wind. His bushy hair had already started to gray, though judging by his narrow face he was still quite young. Not much older than Red himself, if he had to place the guy.

Either way, Red had come this close for a reason. "Sorry, but I'm borrowing that thing!"

Haster quirked up an eyebrow, but before he could respond Red threw his hand out again. This time he used Remote Control to grab the rod in Haster's hand from a distance and, with a jerk of his arm, pulled the thing up into the air.

The rod slipped from Haster's grasp easily enough, leaping to the sky, surrounded by a cluster of avian creatures. Then out from that flying crowd came Lu, the big canyon elf flying in and catching the rod in one hand.

Lu stopped, standing on bare air and looking down at them with a wide, pleased grin on his face. His body, bare as it was from the belly up, was almost completely covered in a multicolored assortment of tags, the palm-sized cards stuck to his skin like a rainbow shell.

Barking out a laugh, Lu twirled the rod in his hand and pointed it down at a bemused Haster. "Now I am the tamer, monk man! I believe you humans say, 'now the tables are flipped,' yes?"

Red grinned, not bothering to correct the elf. Naturally, this had been the idea from the beginning. If this Talisman could command so many beasts, then all they had to do to counter its wielder was steal it for themselves. Even if they hadn't succeeded, just keeping it out of Haster's hands should've given them enough time to escape with the tags during the subsequent chaos.

In other words, a classic smash-and-grab. Simple, but some things didn't have to be anything more than simple to work.

And then Haster started to laugh.

It immediately put Red on edge, because this was supposed to be the part where the bad guy stood gobsmacked at their audacity. He should've been too shocked to speak, or maybe so mad that he threw out some desperate attack.

But instead Haster was... sitting there. One hand on his face. Laughing.

"You..." Haster dragged his hand down his face, eyes closed and lips wide enough to show perfect teeth. "Oh, I get it! Yes, very clever. I see."

Chase, his Spirit no longer emanating from him, drew up slowly beside Red. "What's so funny?" he whispered.

"Hell if I know." Red looked around, watching the monsters. They'd all stopped the moment Lu took hold of the rod. Even the flying ones were now just hovering in the air, flapping up and down.

"It was a brave attempt," Haster said, shaking his head, still smiling. He glanced at Lu, then looked down at Red, zeroing in on the boy. "I applaud you, really."

Red felt his hair stand back up, Spirit Sense tingling far more than with any of the monsters. There was something decidedly judgmental in Haster's eyes, though it didn't seem to carry the kind of open disgust Arthur's had. No, this was an almost curious look, lids narrowed as if reading a book. He judged Red as a realtor might a house, examining strengths and weaknesses, calculating value.

More importantly, those were not eyes of defeat. They were eyes of victory.

Stomach churning, Red pushed his Spirit out in all directions, knowing for a fact now that there was some trap. He could feel it in his bones, smell it in the air. They'd messed up. But how?

No. This wasn't the time to think.

Red threw his hand up, looked with a closed eye down the barrel of his arm, and flicked his finger directly at Haster's forehead.

At the same time, a bird creature suddenly dipped toward the ground. It passed between Red and Haster just as Remote Control activated, breaking the boy's line of sight and blocking the psychic shot. The bird crumbled in the air, broken nearly in half by Red's finger flick, dropping like a dead stone onto the sand.

They both stared down at the dead bird. Then Red glanced up at Haster and flicked again, and again another avian monster came down to defend the man from his Trick. Then a third time, then a fourth time, then a fifth.

"Shit," Red said, blood pumping up into his brain at an almost dizzying rate.

Chase came closer, back turned to him and hands coming slowly together. "Red..."

"I don't know, man!" Red kept up his assault. When the flicks didn't work he started throwing full-on haymakers, but now a mass of flying monsters had come down to form a sort of feathered forcefield around Haster. Each of his attacks produced more and more dead bodies, but for each monster he dropped two took their place. "Stealing the thing didn't work!"

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"I can see that! But look!"

Chase gestured with his head up at Lu, who now Red noticed had himself been consumed by a mass of flying monsters just as Haster had. Except unlike with Haster these monsters were not in the business of defense. Lu juked left and right in the air, trying to escape the beasts, but while his Trick gave him plenty of vertical mobility it wasn't anything compared to the kind of flight actual wings could produce.

Worse, a few of the creatures had grabbed onto the rod in Lu's possession and were trying to pull if from his grip. That would prove impossible, of course—even now the tags remained solidly in place throughout his chest, back, and arms, and if his Trick wasn't letting those slip then the kind of clutch he could exert with his actual hands was practically iron tight. But in their frenzy the monsters had started to slice at Lu himself, claws and fangs raking up and down his arm.

"Bad birds!" Lu called, waving his arm wildly to knock them away. "Bad, bad birds!"

The monsters massed around Haster, flying in circles like a gelatinous ball of flowing motion, opened up a space for Red and Chase to look up at him. The man smiled down at them, lips vicious now, his joy growing with each note of stress and worry he saw on their expressions. "My Talisman isn't some magic wand, you silly children. It brands each of these beasts with my Spirit, and through that brand I can control them as easily as I control my own body." He looked up at Lu, who continued to convulse in the air. "I'd advise your friend to return it to me now, before I'm forced to rip his arm out of its socket."

Glaring, Red flicked his finger again, and with gritting teeth he saw this attack too be intercepted by another sacrificial pawn. The man seemed not to care about all the creatures he'd let Red kill, no trace of any reaction breaking the satisfied tilt of his smirk.

"Lu, let the Talisman go!" Chase shouted. At the same time he tapped his heart, three fingers this time, and his Spirit bloomed out of his body in a shining spark of flame. All around him and Red, the grounded monsters began to approach once more. "We're gonna have to fight our way out!"

Surrounded as he was, it was hard to tell whether Lu heard or not, but eventually one of the bird creatures flapped down with the rod in its beak and offered it to a waiting Haster. Red saw it happen only from the corner of his eye—by then he was too busy dealing with the reinvigorated assault of monsters that now threatened to swallow them up.

He punched and kicked. He grabbed and threw. He pushed and flicked with his powers, watching monsters fly back in whole waves only to be replaced in seconds. They came and came, slashing and biting, ripping his clothes into tatters and drawing blood with cut after cut until nicks and slices covered his whole body.

Chase too. Each swing of the other boy's Hardblade was met with a splash of blood, a cut-off limb, a dash of fur dissipating into the air along with hovering sand.

They fought and fought, sand everywhere filling their eyes and their noses, groans and roars filling their ears, the ground an endless thrum, their hearts an endless beat, their breaths growing weaker and weaker as the world closed in around them inch by bloody inch.

And then Lu was there leaping low through the air, half his torso covered in slick crimson, arm mangled but still holding out for Red. The boy reached up to take the offered hand, feeling himself be pulled from the ground with a flood of relief as sudden as his newfound breath. He glanced sideways at Chase, who'd also been grabbed by Lu's other hand, the three of them now soaring up and away from the untold legion of beasts below.

Red tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry for the words to come out. He licked his lips, feeling as if he was using up the last bits of moisture he still had available. "Hey, you alright, Glowstick?"

"I'll live," Chase groaned. Though he was also covered in his fair share of scratches, the boy looked more exhausted than hurt, skin a sickly pale. The Spirit he'd been pumping out had trickled to a stop. "But still... I told you this was a bad idea."

"We're getting away, aren't we?" Red asked, defensive. Then, hearing Lu's ragged breaths, he looked up at the elf. "Aren't we?"

"I cannot fly, Friend Red... Just as I said before!" If Chase looked bad, Lu looked demonstrably worse. Not only were his injuries more severe, but it seemed like several minutes of using his Trick to stay in the air had taken a toll on him. As it was, each word came alongside a strained huff of air. "This running... I am not fast enough..."

Red turned back to see that he was right. Lu could go pretty fast, but the flying monsters were still after them and were steadily gaining. They'd get caught soon enough.

And they couldn't get caught. Red could keep fighting, at least for a little more, but his friends were too wiped out to do the same. This wasn't going to work.

All because of him. It had been his plan, his desires. They'd followed his lead.

So if this wasn't going to work, Red would just have to make it work. But how? How...

Something white among the mass. Red's eyes shot down to it, were momentarily disbelieving, but the longer he looked the clearer it became that they hadn't tricked him.

"Drop me, Big Guy!" he shouted, feet kicking at the air against Lu's lunging strides. "Down there! Let me go down there!"

"Give it up already," Chase said, hissing pain through his teeth. "Ah... It's over. Running's our best bet."

"Running's not gonna work! I have a plan!"

"And look how well your last one turned out..."

Red looked desperately up at Lu, whose face had set itself with a strained indecision. "Big Guy, trust me! You said it, didn't you?!" He kicked out again, pulling against Lu's Vice Grip. "We'll live or die by trust! Count on me to get us outta this mess!"

Something in Red's eyes must've been damn convincing. Lu's lips pulled into a smile, and Red met it with his own wicked grin. "You are right, Friend Red! Very right!"

"Okay!"

"We will wait for you!"

"Okay!"

"And if you fail, you will at least provide a good distraction!"

"Ok—Hey, what?"

Lu let go, and Red dropped as quickly as he'd been pulled up. The boy screamed at first, the sheer speed of his directional shift tugging at every organ in his body, but as he fell he righted himself in the air and set his feet to land. All the while he kept his eyes on that white shape between the mass of monsters.

Immediately some of the flying beasts turned to follow him, but Red didn't pay them any mind. When he landed in a puff of sand, all the monsters around him began their ravenous assault again, biting and clawing, but Red didn't pay them any mind either. He leaped over their heads and tossed the ones that got in his way out of his way, jumping again and again until eventually he reached his destination.

That white shape, a big feathered and furred body, winged and pawed. Lion's mane, eagle's wings, scorpion's tail. His old buddy Khurang right there in the crowd, attacking him as mindlessly as the rest, the black circle-within-circle brand stark on the beast's forehead.

Still, when Red slammed into the chimera he did so with a grin. "Hey furball, remember me?!"

Khurang roared back, not that Red expected much else. They didn't exactly have the friendliest relationship already, and with Haster apparently controlling the beast, what little recognition there was seemed to have been overwritten entirely. But Red was betting that if there was anything a monster like this hated more than the Magician who'd defeated it numerous times, it was the Magician who'd brainwashed it into being just one of an endless number of pets.

So Red wrestled the thing to the ground, kicking back at all the other monsters that tried to surround him as he did. At the same time, the boy tried remembering what Jason had said back at Labyrinth Peak, during their walk up after their encounter at the underground lake.

Relay Arts formed a Spirit Link between things. A thread of connection between the Magician's soul and something else. Whatever that big fish had done to him and his friends to trap them in their own minds, it had been like a Relay Art in that their Spirit Flow had been superseded by that of another's. However Haster's Trick worked, surely it was a version of the same thing, a Spirit Link that traveled through his flow and connected him to his victims. As Stretch had taught him months before, every Trick ultimately branched out from the same basic techniques.

So all Red had to do was interrupt the flow with his own, just as Jason had done to pull him out of the illusion. And luckily for him, Red's flow was stronger than anyone else's.

Spirit oozed out of him, a wave of pressure intense enough to make the other monsters flinch back. The air itself grew heavy, almost pounding with the thrumming of his heart, and with each beat Red focused on Khurang's own Spirit, knocking on that fortress wall. It was the dam all over again, his Spirit pounding against it with wave after wave, building into a flood.

"C'mon, you big, dumb lion," Red seethed, his surroundings falling away. All he knew was Khurang, the walls of its Spirit standing stalwart against him. "I'm tryin' to help you out here..."

Slowly, the dam began to slide. The wall started to thin, eroding with each wave. And at its foundations Red noticed something else. An almost faint aura different from Khurang's, defended by its own smaller barrier. A dam within a dam.

Or more like a pimple. Red honed in on it, Spirit thrusting with all his strength through the opening he'd made in Khurang and aiming right at it like a dagger.

The smaller barrier popped, and Khurang's spirit flooded back in. In the real world, Red saw the brand on the monster's forehead simply disappear, fading back into white fur as if it had never been burned on. When Khurang next blinked, its mindless ferocity was gone, replaced by uncomprehending confusion. It looked around at all the monsters, looked around at all the sand, and clearly had no idea how it had even gotten there.

Then Khurang's eyes found Red, and the ferocity returned, not mindless but very purposeful.

Before the monster could attack, Red reached out and clamped its maw shut, glaring right in its eyes. "Listen up, furball. In case you haven't noticed, we're both in a lot of trouble here."

Red could sense the other monsters closing in now. They'd held back a bit while his Spirit Flow had been active, its strong flare almost too bright and threatening even through the haze of Haster's mind control. But Red couldn't do that forever, and as much as he prided himself on his almost bottomless endurance he could feel himself growing tired from all that effort.

"Look, you don't like me, I don't like you," Red said, still glaring at Khurang. He could almost feel the beast's trepidation, their Spirits grazing each other and exchanging subtle emotions. "But I freed you, so you owe me. And it's not like you can stay here anyway, unless you wanna get turned into that blowhard's good little housecat again. So, what's it gonna be?"

Khurang stared at him. Red stared at Khurang. Then, eventually, Khurang gave a snort that was either 'Fine' or 'I'll rip you apart.'

Good enough for him.

Red let go of the chimera's mouth, and at once Khurang bit at him. The boy flinched back, hand curling into a fist and ready to slam down in retaliation, but then he was getting pulled up into the air at what felt like a hundred miles an hour and it was only after a moment that he realized Khurang had only taken hold of what remained of his hoodie.

"Oh," he said, looking down at the ground growing more distant. Each flap of Khurang's wings got them higher and higher at an alarming rate, enough that all the other flying monsters had a hard time catching up. It was exactly what he'd hoped for.

Wait.

"Hey, don't leave so fast! We still have to go pick up my friends down there!" Red pointed at Lu and Chase, who were still dashing through the air just over the monster mass below. "Go down and get 'em!"

Khurang snorted again. Refusal.

"You owe me, remember? This is part of the deal!"

Another snort.

"I will beat your ass and get us both killed, god damn it! Go down right now!"

If a snort could communicate a roll of the eyes, that would be the one that followed that statement. Thankfully, Khurang dove back down and within seconds was gliding beside Lu, who noticed first the monster and then Red hanging by his clothes from its bite.

Red thumbed over his shoulder at Khurang. "Told ya I had a plan. Hop on, fellas."

- - - — MKII — - - -

Haster watched the chimera flee, too fast for most of the avian monsters under his control. He could've kept up the chase, but after a certain point it became pointless—even if some of his beasts could've caught those children, it would've been too few of them to win out over even their injured state. And it wasn't like he'd lost anything too valuable. Some tags, sure, but he had literal hundreds as it was.

The only thing he regretted was letting the chimera get away from him—from the feel of it, the monster had been trained for combat. That had been no wild animal, unlike most of these others.

Ah well. Sitting comfortably on his stumpleg mount, Haster let out a yawn. He'd run into the chimera again sooner or later.

"Well fought," Haster mused, tapping Ravdarakas to his other hand, looking down reverently at the rod. "Better than even I imagined."

His bonds remained strong and receptive even during combat, but more crucially he'd been able to keep his attention split between so many perspectives without losing track of things. All his training hadn't gone to waste.

The only thing that worried him was that boy, or rather the strength of his Spirit. Should he have been disappointed that someone else's Spirit Flow had been able to break through his control over one of his creatures, or should he have been happy that it had taken a flow so powerful to do it?

"I'll have to be careful," Haster decided, shrugging. Red's strength of Spirit was ultimately the exception rather than the rule, so there was no point letting it ruin his day. Still, it proved the bonds he formed through Ravdarakas weren't completely invincible. That was worth knowing.

Maybe I'll capture that boy next time, he thought. Ravdarakas was still new to him, after all. For all Hester knew, he only had to train in its use to eliminate such a vulnerability. Capturing the boy, chaining him up somewhere, and forcing him to break through Ravdarakas' control again and again until Haster learned to defend against it...

That would be a good use for a special child like him. It wouldn't be an easy capture, but at this stage of things Haster needed all the challenges he could get. Breaking such a creature might prove interesting if nothing else.

Next time. For now, Haster still had to play along with the League. The Debons first, he made himself remember. Then the Great Houses. Then the League. Then the world.

Yes. But even before all that, he needed more monsters. Those children had killed quite a few of the ones he'd already amassed. How inconvenient.

- - - — MKII — - - -

For the fifth time, Stretch held a piece of cut pork to Penny's lips, and for the fifth time she turned her head, refusing to eat it. Even when her stomach grumbled she refused, though some pink started coloring her cheeks.

"You know a hunger strike is for, like, prison guards or something," Stretch said, pulling back and eating the meat himself.

"You're literally holding me against my will," Penny said, glaring over at him. "That's basically you being a prison guard."

"Yeah, but we're letting you go as soon as we reach the exit, so you're really starving yourself for nothing here."

Malcolm listened to them as he poked the fire, knees drawn up to his chest against the soft chill. It was night, and they'd decided to make camp. Sure, they could've made straight for the exit, but Stretch had argued that surely the way to that exit would be full of ambush attempts from teams hoping to steal tags from other teams on their way out. After a day like theirs, it'd be good to rest and regain their strength before jumping into that kind of trouble.

Malcolm had made a knot from some vines, his short stint as a boy scout finally coming in handy for something, and tied Penny's hands behind her back. He and Stretch had then discussed the Penny issue and determined the only real choice was to keep her tied up with them. Had they let her go with her hands free, Malcolm was sure she'd have tried using her Trick on them. Had they let her go with her hands bound, Malcolm feared she might run into something that she wouldn't then be able to stop from killing her, which would unfortunately rest heavily on his conscience.

So the group now sat around their little campfire, cooking some pig-like creature they'd managed to catch. Hours before the thought of building a fire would've made Malcolm nervous, but by now they'd surely lost Penny's friends. That pursuit had taken hours of hiding under the cover of trees, looking warily up as Leandra's pegasus soared back and forth in search. After a while the beast had flown somewhere north and not come back.

Even Penny had been forced to acknowledge that she wasn't getting saved anytime soon. She'd stopped screaming when ungagged, at least. The first giant bear spider drawn to her cries had put a stop to that very quickly.

"Come on," Stretch sang, waving another piece of pork under Penny's nose to make her smell its salty goodness. "I'm really starting to feel bad here. Don't want people saying we were mean to you or anything."

"Mean to the girl you literally kidnapped?"

"Yeah. I'd rather be a nice kidnapper than a mean kidnapper." Stretch cocked his head. "Plus, you and your friends sorta tried to kill me first, so really you should be grateful I'm not taking it personally."

He waved the pork again. Finally, and with much reluctant staring, Penny let herself be fed.

"There we go," Stretch said, reaching toward the fireside to pluck another from their makeshift wooden tray. "See, that wasn't so bad, right?"

"This..." Penny grimaced as she chewed, then grimaced more as she swallowed. "This isn't even salted."

"Yeah, well, we're out in the middle of the woods. Don't exactly have a lot to work with here."

"I think I'd rather starve..."

A pretty impressive person, this Penny. Malcolm looked at her from the corner of his eye, watching the fire glinting off her glasses. A bit taller than him, and a bit older, but not by much. After those first frenetic minutes she'd somehow managed to retain her dignity throughout her capture. She had as good a mindset as any Ranger, though she wasn't licensed.

What was she, then? Penny had refused to answer any questions on the matter, though Malcolm was sure it was more to annoy them than to hide anything truly important. Not that it mattered; tomorrow they'd bring her to the exit along with them, and after that she'd be out of their hair once and for all.

And then, terribly, something brushed by the bushes.

Malcolm stood at once, hands clapping together. "I heard you," he called. "I know you're there. Step out nice and slow."

It was at least half a bluff—for all Malcolm knew, it could've just been some animal. But to his mild and hidden surprise, a man did step out. So bald that he lacked even eyebrows, the man kept his hands up in peace and smiled reassuringly at them.

"Hey now," the man said, "no need to get violent. We just wanna talk."

"We?" Stretch asked, standing up too.

As he did, other Magicians started stepping out of the bushes. Malcolm's eyes widened as he counted them—a dozen, two dozen, more? A veritable army of Magicians. How'd they snuck up so close with him, Stretch, or Penny being none the wiser?

A Trick, Malcolm thought. One of them has to be like Kitty. A stealth specialist.

The thing to do was to steal the initiative before these people locked it tight in their grasp. Malcolm glanced back at Stretch, who nodded and slid close to Penny. The girl might not be in their team, but they'd chosen to capture her and so she'd become their responsibility. It wouldn't do to let her get hurt on their watch.

"This doesn't look like grounds for a conversation," Malcolm said, looking back at the bald man.

Chuckling, the man shook his head, staring intently back at him. "Fair enough. Let's call it a talk as long as you don't try to fight back, then."

"Yeah... No thanks."

Malcolm breathed in, feeling his Spirit surge, and then breathed out, imagining a storm of fire, a wave of consumptive heat that would wash over the man and the trees around him.

But none of that happened. Not even a hint of smoke escaped his lips.

"What?" Malcolm asked, to himself as much as anyone. He clapped his hands again, tried to breathe again, and again his Trick would not activate. He could feel the Spirit taking shape, but it wouldn't flow out. It was like a valve had been shut off inside him.

And the more he tried, the wider the man's smile became. "Like I said, we're just here to talk. That's all."