Tala foiled a series of strikes from various training weapons as four Talons tried to work together to earn even a single hit on her.

The Talons weren’t those on Terry’s feet; she and Terry weren’t sparring at the moment. Instead, the Irondale Defenders had proposed the name ‘Talons’ after Terry’s first venture with them—in honor of and inspired by him—and it had immediately caught on.

At that moment, Tala was sparring against four Talons, flowing between their strikes yet never needing to actually deflect the blows this session.

These four were far better than they had been in their first clash, nearly a week earlier.

Now, they almost never hit each other or the others’ weapons when she wasn’t where they expected. They worked together to pincer her with each strike rather than just with how they positioned their bodies.

Her relaxed movements belied exactly how dangerous the situation could have been.

The movements of each of the Talons were so enhanced that they almost cracked the air with every swing of their various weapons. It was only Tala’s increasing mastery of the Way of Flowing Blood that allowed her to stay out of the way, and they were picking up on even that faster than any mundane could have.

-Mental enhancements for the win!-

Indeed. Without those, they’d have trouble controlling their bodies, though.

-True enough.-

Ironhold—the name having been adopted with roaring enthusiasm on all counts—was still anchored outside of old Marliweather, and truth be told, Tala was becoming concerned.

The reality nodes that she’d affected had still not fully pulled back together, and she was starting to think that she’d managed to do substantial damage to them… somehow.

She still didn’t quite understand all that she was affecting with her workings on reality nodes and threads, and when working with forces beyond her current comprehension, she was bound to fumble something.

Every day, Terry had taken out groups of the Talons to hunt arcanous creatures in the region, and every day, Tala had met with all the Talons to give them insight into the magics that they all shared as well as sparring with them to highlight their weaknesses.

It was honestly something that she should have done long ago, but she’d been… unwilling to take on even that much responsibility.

She now realized that such was really the equivalent of hiding under the covers and hoping a monster wouldn’t hurt her.

It was there, and it needed to be dealt with.

She had founded Irondale, invited people in, and given many of them magic. She was involved at a foundational level, and her live-and-let-live attitude had gone on long enough.

-And now they’ve stopped calling you the ‘M’ word.-

Tala felt a twinge at even the oblique reminder but pressed on. True. It’s amazing what I can accomplish when I actually get involved.

Alat sent a burst of laughter through Tala’s mind, even as Tala did a sideways, twisting flip to go through a miniscule gap between three of the weapons. Despite the acrobatic nature of the maneuver, both of her feet were only off of the ground for a fraction of a second.

Ballistic movements were too easy to predict and too hard to alter if an opponent reacted.

Even so, that small instant of inability to change course was enough. Even as her toes touched the training ground floor, the fourth Talon came in at an unavoidable angle, and Tala was forced to flick out Flow in order to keep the strike from reaching her.

The clack of Flow’s training sheath on the wooden weapon signaled for all of them to stop.

Tala grinned at the panting four. Two men and two women regarded her in return, drenched with sweat. “Well done, all of you. Your Clutch is working more and more as one, rather than four separate fighters. That will make all the difference when you fight opponents with a greater range of magics at their disposal, or greater experience or combat prowess.”

The Talons had elected to call their units ‘Clutches’ for thematic reasons, and Tala had found no reason to object.

“You are still relying on your enhancements more than you should. They are enhancements, which means that your base physique plays a massive role in the end result. I know you’ve only had a week to adjust your training, but it still bears repeating. This applies to reaction training too, not just physical conditioning.”

The four shared a look before bringing their weapons into a point down position, held before them, clasped in both hands. They bowed their heads to touch their handles and said as one, “Yes, Mistress Tala.”

Tala shook her head, but a smile tugged at her lips. “Go sit with the others.” She then turned to the group watching from among trees around the training arena.

Lyn had moved quickly, and the Talons were already established in the relocated remnants of the elven hold.

It was now located within a forest a couple of miles south of Irondale proper, and it contained the housing and training facilities for all of the Talons. It also contained their families and the peripheral requirements to support all those people.

Additionally, several crafters had petitioned to have their workshops relocated, and a few such appeals had even been granted.

Tala looked around at those who had been watching. “What did they do right? Wrong? What did I do wrong?”

That spawned a discussion that lasted a few minutes as the Talons thought through the fight and analyzed it from their various viewpoints.

When the conversation wound down, Tala asked the Clutch to evaluate their own performance before she gave her own thoughts. Once the back and forths spawned from that finished, she announced, “Next Clutch!”

Unfortunately, the next Clutch never forced her to block or deflect with Flow. Their session ended when one of their members stumbled in her exhaustion, tripping up one of her Clutch-mates.

Ironically, that had almost forced Tala to take a hit, but only because it almost made the tripped fighter fall in the way of another swing.

He’d have been brained by the practice sword if Tala hadn’t gotten in the way. In this case, though, she got in the way via her will, mainly by stopping that attacking sword cold mid-air.

There was a moment of horrified silence as the one with the stopped sword saw just how close his weapon had come to striking his comrade in the head.

Then, they all stepped back and saluted Tala, thanking her for the clash.

In the lull that followed, they all talked through what had gone wrong and what had gone well during the conflict, just as before.

She solicited feedback from the watching Talons, and all in all, she felt much like she was back with Adam at the Guards’ training yard, except now, she was the more skilled, and they were trying to get used to their far stronger, faster, and more enduring bodies.

Even those like Kedva—who had had the abilities for years at this point—still hadn’t truly acclimated to being so enhanced. Though, Kedva wasn’t one of the Talons at the moment—her current pregnancy getting in the way—so maybe the woman would have surprised Tala, had they had cause to spar.

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Regardless, Tala continued through the Clutches until she’d fought all the Talons in their groups of four.

These were the majority of those who had received their rebirth into power.

There were another hundred or so undergoing training to see if they were a good fit for rebirth, but Tala didn’t have much desire to participate in that part of things.

She was about to go into the next activity of the day when Alat sounded in her head.

-It happened!-

Tala jerked at the volume of the internal exclamation, glad that she’d already left the training area.

-It finally healed!-

It seemed as if the rift between the two reality nodes that Tala had affected had finally healed naturally. Any idea what changed?

-Oh, I have so many ideas. Find a place where we won’t be interrupted, and I’ll show you what you missed while I was monitoring things.-

Alright.

Tala said her goodbyes before moving herself to the sanctum, taking a seat in one of the many dells around the waterway ringing the central rise.

I’m ready.

Alat pulled up memories of her observations, allowing Tala to experience them in sequence.

-See here? I started to notice an oddity even right after we released our working.-

Tala frowned. She thought she saw it, but it was something that she would have dismissed if Alat hadn’t pointed it out specifically. Are the creatures avoiding that part of reality? They are going around the place where we made the temporary repair, is that right?

-Yes, exactly. It’s a subtle thing, especially since their movements are seemingly random to begin with.-

Yeah, and some of them do still come near, and even cross between the two nodes in question, but not quite as often.

-Exactly. And that’s enough to slow down the healing dramatically. Apparently, there is some natural degradation that occurs when the nodes are separate, and some of the ‘crossing’ is just keeping that from progressing.-

And after our work, that bare minimum was basically all that happened.

-Yeah, that’s how it looks.-

So what changed? Did the little bit of difference just finally add up?

-No? I don’t think so at least. I think that the last vestiges of our magic finally faded from the nodes, and the normal processes picked back up.-

Tala frowned. My magic should have been gone as soon as the workings broke. She shook her head. Rust, the magic should have been gone as soon as they were no longer getting amplified.

-But it wasn’t. Not really.-

Explain, please.

-I’m guessing a bit, here, but I think it bears up. By acting on them, we were tipping the balance within the nodes away from Reality and toward Magic, which made it harder for Reality-aligned creatures to repair the damage. It was only as previous association with magic bled off, and the closeness of the Void shifted the balance further, that they were able to come back together.-

I assume that you have more than just ‘guessing’ to back up your guess?

-You’d be completely right, there. Here.-

Next, Alat showed Tala a sped-up memory of the nodes that they’d messed with.

Over time, the discrepancy in the movement of the creatures became much clearer, but it was just as clearly becoming less and less prominent over the same span of time.

Yeah, that definitely comes across as something slowly fading over time. We might be a bit hasty in categorically stating that it is an imbalance in association with the various pillars of Existence, but I think I see the merit of your theory.

-So, are we good to send this to the review committee?-

Tala chuckled. There was a group of Paragons—and likely a few Refined and maybe a Reforged or two—who had reviewed her proposal and approved her experiment to begin with.

Generally, the group oversaw the city cycles, ensuring that no site was used again until after it had fully recovered for a good long time.

She had been approved to try her experiment only so long as she shared her findings with them in turn.

On one side, she’d been a bit irritated at the need to get permission to use her magic as she saw fit, but she understood the core of the issue with that thinking.

For one, she already knew that she could make the damage much worse if she wanted to, and if such was possible on purpose, it would also be possible on accident. After all, it is far easier to destroy, damage, or corrupt than to create, repair, or purify.

Thus, she was actually relatively grateful to have so many experts willing to review her work and verify she wasn’t making foolish mistakes.

Yeah, send it on. Thank you, Alat.

Alat sent the equivalent of a handwave at the expression of gratitude. -I love doing this type of thing. I know that if you didn’t have other things pulling at you, you’d love to do it too.-

Tala chuckled. Would she? Probably, yeah. She doubted she would ever be so free from the constraints of life in Zeme, but she was glad that one version of herself could pursue that area of interest.

-We make a pretty great team, don’t we?-

Oh, yeah we do. I always did better on solo projects than on team work in school.

Alat snorted a laugh. -Yeah, this is the best of both worlds. We only have to trust ourself, but someone else can still do some of the work.-

Exactly.

There was a long pause.

You know, we could re-merge our selves. We’ve diverged quite a bit over the years.

-Do you really want to?- Alat seemed genuinely curious.

I… I don’t think so? I like us being different, while still being the same. I feel like it lets us be more complementary to each other and get more done with greater efficiency.

-We are quite great, yeah.-

Tala snorted a laugh. Yeah, there’s our legendary humility at work.

-I was just being complimentary.-

Oh, I’m aware.

-Oh, I know that you were.-

They shared a cycling feeling of amusement and shared affection.

She knew that they were her, and that she was talking with herself, but she also felt like they had diverged enough that they were distinct enough that their conversations were meaningful, even if Alat could technically simply read Tala’s thoughts, emotions, and internal workings to the point that they could be rendered entirely unnecessary.

There was a funny fact hidden in that.

Alat was the more ‘complete’ Tala, as she held access to both of their minds, memories, and everything, but they’d decided that Alat was their more cognitive half, so it just made sense for her to have such functionality at her disposal.

Tala was more the physical and magical half, and she was more than fine with that.

But she was now getting lost in the weeds of her own mind yet again. She needed to find Rane and tell him that things were progressing.

He’d been making a series of statues, trying to truly capture translucent material in the medium of stone, and he’d been almost entirely lost to the world since they’d finished exploring the newly acquired dimensionality of the gifted hold.

It was about time that she checked on him.

She appeared beside her husband, waiting a moment as he finished a cut before kissing him on the cheek.

He smiled absently without turning to look. “Is it time for dinner already?”

She blinked a few times, then started laughing.

He frowned, turning to look at her, seeming to come out of his fugue state fully, almost literally shaking it off. “What?”

“Oh, Rane! I apologize. I completely forgot that you asked me to get you for dinner.”

-Yeah, I was wondering when you’d remember that.-

You could have told me!

-You could have asked.- Alat sent a sense of teasing and playfulness.

Oh, Alat… this was not the thing to play with.

-On the contrary, I think it was good for both of you.-

Tala could only grouse internally.

“Oh, You forgot?” Rane looked a bit sad, but not overly upset. “I suppose I can grab a bite from somewhere. I am actually pretty hungry, now that I think about it.” He looked at all he’d done, a smile growing on his lips. “But, you know, I think I’m glad you didn’t come and get me. I got some good work done, and it was really fun. Though, I did way more than I really should have been able to…” He shrugged, turned, and grinned at her. “I missed dinner, then?”

She scratched the side of her neck, glancing away. “Well, you could say that. How focused have you been?”

He shrugged. “Pretty focused, I guess.” He gestured around himself. “The steady light we’ve set up in this workshop makes telling the passage of time difficult, even while it makes working easier. I was having a good time, too. Why? How long has it been?”

Tala cleared her throat, fighting both a smile of mirth and a look of contrition. “Well… seven days, give or take.”

He blinked a few times, looked up and to the right—clearly checking in with Enar.

-Yeah, Enar was distracted too…-

Finally, he huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Well… rust. No wonder I’m so hungry.”