A second after the battle had begun, a series of explosions of pink smoke covered the entire field. An opaque shroud now hung heavy.

Muffled sounds of struggle followed, accompanied by the shrill shriek of Travis’ Lightning Judgement of Tyrannical Ruination. Moments later a scream sounded from inside that traveled rapidly toward the spectators’ side. With a puff, Travis came flying out, limbs flailing uncontrollably in the air. Flipping twice, he hit the ground ass first and slid through the grass, trailing a groove like a farmer plowing a field.

The arguably strongest Awakened in Forest had just been thrown out like the garbage on a Monday night. Chairwoman Huntley and Mr. Kerman both watched with their jaws hanging at about hip height.

With an intangible gust of wind, the pink smoke cleared up and out as if it had been taken by a tornado. In the exact spot where Boulder Fist Gary had stood ready to fight he was now forced to his knees with both arms held fast behind his back by just one of Atla’s hands. The man had never even been allowed the chance to move before she brought him down.

The man never seemed to learn to shut his mouth. “What a cowardly way of fighting! Tricks are all you’re capable of!” he howled.

She let him go and flickered to her original starting position. Gary stood and charged her. She flickered again and crushed his nose with a knee that he never saw coming. As he went down, blood streaming generously from his nostrils, Travis launched two smaller bolts and advanced, pulses of electricity already appearing in his palms again.

Atla avoided one and caught the other in a cloud of pink where the angry electricity fizzled and died. Enveloping his fists in crackling energy, Travis leapt for the Alliance representative, his grin that of a maniac. He was loving it.

It looked like his punch was going to hit her, but at the moment of contact her entire body dissipated into pink. Another cloud popped into existence behind him and he turned to attack there as well, but her body simply reformed without moving.

Her kick took him in the back of the knees, flipping him in place, and when he came back around an elbow to the abdomen sent him into the ground with a boom.

Another puff of smoke delivered her to Eik’s side where she clapped her hands together sprightly. “Well, since that over and done with, shall we get something to eat?”

Eik glanced at the leaders gathered a dozen paces away. They were simply staring open-mouthed at the aftermath of the fight that had lasted less than a minute. Eik now realized that probably not a single one of them had been present to witness Boulder Fist Gary’s defeat at Atla’s hand when she first came through the fracture to establish contact with Earth.

They had likely never quite believed it to be more than a rumor.

“I guess it’s okay to leave?” he said hesitantly and started to walk.

“Wait!” Gary bellowed from the ground. He hadn’t lifted his head, but he seemed to be awake.

“Yes?” Atla asked.

It took the man a moment to say the words. “This isn’t over! I am the strongest in Forest! And I will become the strongest of all in the Unified Mass as well!”

Atla let out a short chuckle. “My friend, soon even young Eik here will be able to beat you with his hands tied behind his back.”

“I will never allow that to happen!” he screamed, voice warped by the broken nose. Eik could just imagine the color of his face.

When he stopped talking Eik craned his neck to look at the man.

He was lying completely still, only the soft rising of his chest .

"Well, if you're hungry you guys can come to my house. I’ll cook you something,” Eik said tentatively, casting constant glances back at the gathering of leaders, and started for the city. No one tried to stop him.

“Ouh, Earth food!” Atla sang, taking her robe from Mikla who seemed to liven up at the prospect of something to eat.

“And you can meet my cat too.”

***

Eik fried a side of fish with potatoes and a herb sauce for the two of them and they loved it. Once they had eaten Mikla spent a solid hour cuddling with Mis. It was his first time meeting a cat and he was instantly in love.

“Did you know?” he said as he rolled around on the floor, Mis chasing a string. “We have pets back home as well but unlike this cutie here, ours have eight legs and their skin constantly releases this sticky, smelly slime-like substance. It’s honestly quite unpleasant.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Then… why?” Eik asked with a frown.

The fracture specialist just shrugged. “I don’t know. Traditions, I guess. Some people love them,” he said and fed Mis a piece of fried salmon which she gobbled up with abandon. “She keeps eating. Do you usually not feed a cat?”

“I feed her three times a day. She’s bottomless.”

A knock on the door drew their attention and Eik went to open. It was Michael and Sonja. “What’s up? Come in. Where’s Heath?”

“He wasn’t up for the trek to your house so he’s at home hating that we live in a time where he can no longer binge TV shows when he’s injured,” Sonja said and stopped short once she saw the guests. “Ah—, hello. Ms. Atla. Mr. Mikla. How are you?” she asked politely, offering a small bow. Michael looked considerably more uncomfortable.

“Good, thank you,” Mikla said. “And you? I heard your brother was hurt. How is he?”

“He’ll be fine soon, thank you. How did the debrief go?”

Eik recounted the day’s events. He told them about his dismissal, about the leaders’ denigration of the assault on Heath, and finally about the way Atla had absolutely crushed Travis Lockwood and, especially, Boulder Fist Gary.

“Those damned bastards!” Sonja spat, her water glass complaining in her grip. “If I could just get my fingers around the neck of that disgusting Merchant Lord…”

Atla sat back in her chair with a thoughtful look. “If you want to be able to fight back against unfairness, then you’ll need to become stronger. In the Unified Mass strength is the ultimate measure of one’s freedom.”

Eik nodded. He was beginning to understand that. A lack of strength was basically also the only thing between him and waking Olivia up from her coma.

“When do you think Heath will be up for some action again, Sonja?” he asked.

“At this rate, if we give him another three days it should be fine.”

Eik regarded his two teammates somberly. “The debrief obviously went pretty horribly, but I fear there are going to be worse consequences than just my dismissal from duty.” — He sighed and put his face in his hands — “I made some pretty public accusations back there but, while I expected the usual rats to oppose, I honestly didn’t think I would be shot down that hard. They might start coming after us, guys…”

“So what are you suggesting?”

Eik hesitated as he again mulled over what he had been mulling since he had left the duel with Atla and Mikla. “I think we’re going to have to make ourselves scarce for a little while — just until everything settles down a bit. Maybe we should take on one of the long expeditions once Heath is up and ready. Forest is constantly running out of resources, so I’m sure we can be sent on a search for whatever.”

As the three of them sat in contemplative silence Atla raised a hand, still chewing on a slice of Eik’s home baked bread with butter. “How about you come with us to Nidafjeld for a while?” she said.

“To do what?” Michael asked.

“To get stronger, of course,” she said with a wink that seemed to take some of the color out of the young healer’s face.

“Can you really help us get stronger?” Sonja asked.

“Of course! What kind of question is that?”

The three teammates exchange glances for a moment before nodding to each other. “Can I go home to my mother once in a while?” Michael asked.

“I can take you whenever we have time,” Mikla promised readily.

“And can I bring my cat?” Eik asked.

“Yes, please!” the black-haired man exclaimed enthusiastically.

“When should we come?” Sonja asked.

“Now.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “And by “now”, you mean…”

“Now, yes,” Atla said. “Pack your bags.”

“No way,” Eik muttered as he went to find a travel bag. “Is this the training arc?”

Atla and Mikla looked at him with expressions of confusion. “I’m not sure what a “training arc” is,” Atla said. “but while I will certainly ensure that you’ll be training, that is not all you will be doing, I can promise. I have things in mind.”

“I’m not sure if I like the sound of that,” Michael said timidly. “Do you?” He side-eyed Eik and Sonja who simply shrugged.

“Despite all we’ve been through my primary goal is still to find a way to wake Olivia up from her coma, so I’m actually all for this kind of thing if it can help me get there faster,” Eik admitted.

“I’ll go get Heath,” Sonja said and left. Looking troubled, Michael followed her out to gather his own things.

***

The fracture connected to the same white stone building that Eik had been brought to on his first visit. At the time the experience had been so utterly mind-blowing and terrifying that he’d had little left to actually take it all in.

The four of them stood there on the manicured lawn and stared up into the domed ceiling. This was really another planet. Another world.

Mis leapt from Eik’s embrace and ran for the arched door. He dropped his bag and went after her. Unlike when Eik first came there were no guards watching the domed building.

“Is that the Nidafjeld Alliance?” Heath asked as the rest of them caught up. His backpack was bulging with everything he had brought from their cellar, unwilling to waste any of the perishables they had paid preciously for. “It looks a little…”

“Mundane?” Eik finished cheerfully. “I said the same thing. There’s a fog right now but wait until it lifts. It looks pretty insane.”

They continued down the slope toward the town proper. Grabbing a bite to eat on the way—Eik ordering dirt duck for the whole group—they made the whole trip to the headquarters on foot. Without the fracture to take them to the heart of the complex, there were seemingly endless safety measures in place.

At three different checkpoints they had to wait for their identification to be verified. Eik seemed to have already been registered as a person related tangentially to the Nidafjeld Alliance but the others had to go through a whole procedure before they were allowed to pass through to the inner areas of the headquarters.

They were subjected to scans in order to check for “disguises, illusions, and transformations”, and had their brains and auras analyzed, although none of them had the slightest idea what any of that actually entailed.

“What stops a hostile force from simply opening a fracture and invading your territory from the inside out?” Michael asked as they passed the last checkpoint and entered the premises proper.

A light appeared in Mikla’s eyes. “Good question! It’s a super interesting topic!” he began with enthusiasm. “First of all, we obviously have front line barriers that alert and expel any spatial manipulation containing unknown patterns, but we also have several high-ranking strike forces in constant rotation who can move to any location on the ground in a couple of seconds. Furthermore…”

“What are we going to be doing here, Atla?” Eik asked as Michael was bombarded by Mikla’s facts about the Nidafjeld Alliance’s spatial defense systems.

“I have a few things in mind, but the first thing I’ll put you through is something we’ve used for a couple of thousand years to test and toughen our young. I’ve done it myself,” she said with a glint in her eyes.

Eik felt his stomach turning slightly. “What, uuh… What is it?”

“We call it The Crucible.”